VMware sees 'tremendous' Q2 APAC growth

SINGAPORE--Virtualization solutions vendor VMware has witnessed "tremendous growth" in Asia-Pacific and Japan and plans to hire more people to cope with the increased customer demand, according to a company executive.

Andrew Dutton, senior vice president and general manager of VMware Asia-Pacific and Japan, told ZDNet Asia in an interview Wednesday that the company saw the region's business bookings grow 81 percent compared with the same quarter last year. Comparatively, the global growth rate for the quarter stood at 48 percent, he noted.

Delving deeper into the Asia-Pacific figures, he noted that "every country operation in the region recorded significant second-quarter growth". For instance, Australia and New Zealand saw 71 percent growth, while Japan and Greater China hit 97 percent and 94 percent growth, respectively.

The company's press release also stated that VMware's global revenues reached US$674 million, which is an increase of 48 percent from the second quarter of 2009. However, the firm did not reveal the Asia-Pacific region's contribution to the overall revenue generated.

As to why the region has experienced such high growth, Dutton attributed the positive results to the company's vSphere virtualization platform.

"We are the only company in the world that allows companies to virtualize their data centers and create a private cloud, equip vendors with the [necessary tools and skill sets] to create a public cloud space and provide the management tools and platform for our customers to function in a hybrid cloud environment," he elaborated.

According to the press release, VMware's regional customer base, which stood at over 7,000 in June 2009, saw a hike of 55 percent to more than 15,000 in June this year. Its regional ecosystem of partners, which includes companies such as Cisco, Intel and IBM, has also increased to over 4,000, the release stated.

Of the increased demand in the region, the executive pointed out two industry verticals--"government agencies and defense departments"--which stand out for their increased adoption of virtualization software and services.

Dutton said that using virtualization to decrease the number of workloads on these agencies' data centers will reduce the amount of power needed to run the data centers, which, in turn, will decrease their carbon footprint.

"As governments are now emphasizing on reducing their carbon footprints, we believe that the demand for our solutions will continue to stay high," he said.

Furthermore, these agencies will no longer need to spend much of their budget on adding to their data center capabilities regularly, and this will help reduce infrastructure costs, added the executive.

In the defense sector, Dutton said the reasons are "similar" to that of government agencies. He pointed out that in settings such as "warships and submarines", which are faced with space and energy constraints, virtualization provides the solution to reduce power and space needed to run the necessary IT programs onboard, such as "battle command scenarios".

The executive also singled out China and Japan as two countries that the company had "invested heavily" in over the last 18 months.

When quizzed further, he said that Japan, for example, is the "second largest economy in the world" and the company hopes to provide the necessary IT support and resources to keep the economy moving at a fast pace.

To deliver on this support, Dutton revealed that VMware had been investing in the local people by building more facilities to provide jobs and education that will help ensure a pool of skilled laborers to sustain growth.

Additionally, the company had been focusing on its "localization" efforts that include creating Japanese Web sites, marketing collaterals and other materials to better reach the country's audience, he added.

Japan and China are not the only beneficiaries of VMware's expanding business in the region. Dutton told ZDNet Asia that the company has plans to increase its staff count in Asean states such as "Malaysia, Thailand, Indonesia and Singapore".

"I have just given the approval to hire more staff and we plan to add 70 percent to 100 percent more employees in the Asean region," he said.

The company presently has about 1,400 employees, including research and development staff, on its regional payroll, he added.

ZDNet Asia's sister site, ZDNet, had earlier reported that VMware raised its outlook for 2010 due to companies refreshing their IT infrastructure.

The company forecasted that third quarter revenue would be "flat" and in the range of US$680 million to US$705 million, while whole year revenue projection would be between US$2.72 billion and US$2.8 billion.