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by pch00 749 days ago
> Basically, this customer was using BOTH Nutanix and VMWare internally (I am VERY surprised how the previous CFO did not get fired for something like that), and because they already had the Nutanix knowhow and licenses, migrated fully to it.

Why do you think that? Not putting all of your eggs into a single vendor basket seems like a solid plan - if anything the Broadcom/VMware disaster supports it.
1 comments
alephnerd 749 days ago
> Why do you think that

Have you ever seen Nutanix's pricebook as well as VMWare's?

Spending 2x on hypervisors is dumb because now you need 2x the headcount on SMEs because you'll need both a Nutanix and VMware SME, as well as 2x the contract negotiations, and the money you are spending on both could have been better spend improving your product or hiring more people to sell your product.

It's a bad use of capital. At the end of the day, Infra is a cost center. It's something used to keep the lights on, but doesn't expand your TAM.

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pch00 749 days ago
> It's a bad use of capital. At the end of the day, Infra is a cost center. It's something used to keep the lights on, but doesn't expand your TAM.

Indeed it is and while CFOs may not completely understand the technology they do understand risk and if the CTO has flagged "single vendor" as a risk then the CFO will go with that.

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alephnerd 749 days ago
I also wouldn't be surprised if pre-Broadcom VMWare APJ AEs gave these guys a sweetheart deal just to make logo/ACV quota in their region. Shenanigans like that were VERY common at VMWare before the acquisition. Their SalesOps was horrid.
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benterix 749 days ago
And yet, every single large company I worked for had AWS, Azure and Google Cloud, without exception. Many also have extensive on-prem resources.

Also, the contract negotiations you mentioned work much better if the competitor is already well present in your company.

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alephnerd 749 days ago
> every single large company I worked for had AWS, Azure and Google Cloud,

Multi-cloud is different from on-prem related stuff like multi-hypervisors, because there are multiple billing methods, the muscle to migrate is much better built in the industry, and your cloud costs can be placed within R&D (which traditionally gets way more leeway due to tax benefits) whereas any IT Infra spend will inevitably fall under the Finance&IT budget.

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benterix 749 days ago
Of course it's very different, but it's the same in how buying the same functionality from a competitor is not a reason to get you fired unless there are other specific conditions.
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alephnerd 749 days ago
> buying the same functionality from a competitor is not a reason to get you fired unless there are other specific conditions

There are different expectations depending on the kind of bucket you are spending from.

The amount of capital you have to spend in the R&D bucket is much larger than the Finance&IT bucket and who you report to (CTO vs CFO) is different.

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