This article is based on statements made by VMware CEO Pat Gelsinger during VMware’s fiscal Q2 2019 earnings call, as transcribed by Seeking Alpha, and originally reported by FierceTelecom ahead of VMworld 2019 in San Francisco.
VMware Bets Its Platform on Kubernetes
In August 2019, VMware CEO Pat Gelsinger used the company’s fiscal second quarter earnings call to signal a decisive strategic shift: Kubernetes would become the foundational layer of VMware’s entire platform. The announcement came days before VMworld 2019 in San Francisco, where VMware planned to reveal the full scope of its Kubernetes roadmap.
“The transition to Kubernetes is underway and the time to move decisively is now,” Gelsinger said, according to a Seeking Alpha transcript of the earnings call.
The Acquisitions Powering the Strategy: Heptio and Pivotal
Two acquisitions formed the backbone of VMware’s Kubernetes push:
- Heptio — announced in November 2018, this Kubernetes-native startup was co-founded by two of Kubernetes’ original creators. Gelsinger credited the acquisition with making VMware a top-three contributor to the Kubernetes open-source project.
- Pivotal Software — VMware announced a deal to acquire a controlling stake in Pivotal as part of a combined $4.8 billion in transactions that also included the purchase of endpoint security vendor Carbon Black. VMware had previously held a minority stake in Pivotal and resold some of its products, including the jointly developed VMware Enterprise PKS (Pivotal Container Service).
Pivotal brought an enterprise application development platform and a customer base of approximately 350 organizations, including a significant number of Fortune 100 companies, many of which were already transitioning workloads to Kubernetes.
The “Build, Run, Manage” Framework
Gelsinger organized VMware’s Kubernetes strategy around three pillars:
Build
Pivotal filled a gap VMware acknowledged it had. Its developer tooling and application platform capabilities gave VMware the “build” layer — the ability to help enterprises develop cloud-native applications from the ground up. “We really did not have build assets,” Gelsinger said. “Pivotal and their capabilities are uniquely positioned in the industry to finish that stack.”
Run
The “run” layer centered on integrating Kubernetes directly into vSphere — VMware’s core hypervisor and the dominant platform in enterprise data centers. Gelsinger announced plans to rebuild both vCenter and vSphere on top of Kubernetes, positioning vSphere as a native Kubernetes platform capable of managing both virtual machines and containers within a unified control plane. “We will describe a major R&D effort to evolve VMware vSphere into a native Kubernetes platform for VMs and containers,” he said.
Manage
VMware positioned its existing multi-cloud management tooling, strengthened by Heptio’s Kubernetes expertise, as the management layer — enabling customers to operate Kubernetes workloads consistently across on-premises infrastructure and multiple public clouds.
“Together with Heptio and Pivotal, VMware will offer a comprehensive Kubernetes-based portfolio to build, run and manage modern applications on any cloud.”
— Pat Gelsinger, VMware CEO, Q2 FY2020 Earnings Call
Why This Mattered for Enterprise IT
VMware’s Kubernetes pivot was significant for several reasons:
- Installed base leverage: VMware’s vSphere ran in a large proportion of enterprise data centers worldwide. Embedding Kubernetes natively into vSphere meant enterprises could adopt container orchestration without replacing their existing virtualization infrastructure.
- Operator familiarity: Rather than forcing infrastructure teams to learn an entirely new operational model, VMware’s approach aimed to surface Kubernetes through familiar vCenter and vSphere interfaces.
- Multi-cloud consistency: The combined portfolio targeted a customer pain point — managing applications consistently across on-premises and multiple cloud environments — that was already driving demand for Kubernetes.
- A unified vendor relationship: Gelsinger cited direct customer feedback: “We want one place to come together for this technology pool.” Owning Heptio, Pivotal, and its own infrastructure stack let VMware offer that single relationship.
Digital Transformation Trends Driving the Shift
In his earnings call opening remarks, Gelsinger identified three macro trends shaping enterprise IT investment at the time, each directly relevant to VMware’s Kubernetes positioning:
- Multi-cloud adoption — Enterprises were distributing workloads across AWS, Azure, Google Cloud, and private infrastructure, creating demand for a consistent operational layer.
- Cloud-native application development — Development teams were moving toward microservices, containers, and CI/CD pipelines, areas where Pivotal’s platform and Kubernetes tooling were directly applicable.
- Security — The concurrent acquisition of Carbon Black reflected VMware’s intent to embed security into its platform rather than treat it as a bolt-on, addressing growing concerns about workload and endpoint security in hybrid environments.
What VMworld 2019 Was Expected to Reveal
At the time of the earnings call, VMworld 2019 had not yet taken place. Gelsinger previewed that VMware would announce major expansions to its Kubernetes and application portfolio at the conference, including further detail on how Pivotal’s platform would integrate into VMware’s product lineup and the technical specifics of the vSphere-Kubernetes integration.
The vSphere-Kubernetes integration Gelsinger described would later ship as vSphere with Kubernetes (subsequently renamed VMware Tanzu), which embedded a Kubernetes supervisor cluster directly into the vSphere control plane — validating the direction he outlined on the call.
Key Takeaways
- VMware’s 2019 Kubernetes strategy was anchored by the acquisitions of Heptio (Kubernetes expertise and open-source contribution) and Pivotal (developer platform and enterprise customer base).
- The strategic framework — build, run, manage — gave VMware a clear narrative for positioning a full-stack Kubernetes offering to enterprise buyers.
- Rebuilding vSphere on Kubernetes was the most architecturally significant commitment, signaling that Kubernetes would become infrastructure, not just an application layer.
- The combined $4.8 billion in acquisitions (Pivotal and Carbon Black) reflected the scale of VMware’s investment in this direction.