2014 Data Center 100: 20 Virtualization Providers
Virtualization Companies Are Delivering Big Sales And Return On Investment
There are more companies delivering explosive sales growth with breakthrough technologies in the virtualization market than any other segment of the Data Center 100. Among the big winners are Veeam, which is growing fast and has set its sights on the $1 billion sales mark; SolarWinds, which recently posted 32 percent year-over-year quarterly sales growth; and AppSense, which just delivered record first half fiscal year bookings.
The payback from the virtualization data center standouts, meanwhile, is best in class. A VMTurbo customer, for example, saved over $160,000 in Amazon Web Services costs. It is those kinds of numbers that are driving big profits for partners and big payback for customers.
AppSense
CEO: Scott Arnold
Sunnyvale, Calif.
Virtualization management superstar AppSense delivered record first half fiscal year bookings with a 50 percent increase in customers spending over $1 million a year. The company just updated its DesktopNow platform with improved performance, scalability and additional Microsoft and VMware support.
Bromium
Co-Founder and CEO: Gaurav Banga
Cupertino, Calif.
Bromium is changing the game in enterprise end-point security by choking off malware in virtual machines with its vSentry product. The breakthrough technology company raised $40 million last fall in an oversubscribed round of funding. In addition to co-founder and CEO Gaurav Banga, the other top-notch co-founder is CTO Simon Crosby, the one time founder and CTO of XenSource.
Citrix Systems
CEO: Mark Templeton
Fort Lauderdale, Fla
Top partners give Citrix high marks for its top-flight technology and channel program. The company recently added big data analytics to the mix through a partnership with Zettics that will result in new products. Biggest challenge: finding a replacement for CEO Mark Templeton, who is slated to retire in the next year.
Delphix
Founder, President and CEO: Jedidiah Yueh
Menlo Park, Calif.
Founder Jedidiah Yueh has stellar credentials as the one-time founder of Avamar, which pioneered deduplication and was sold to EMC for $165 million. Now at Delphix, Yueh is pioneering another new category: accelerating enterprise applications/business intelligence with an "agile data platform."
GreenBytes Inc.
Founder and CEO: Bob Petrocelli
Ashaway, RI
Desktop virtualization storage optimization provider GreenBytes recently enhanced its virtual storage appliance functionality with high-availability blade failover with as few as 4 vCPUs and 16 GB of RAM on a single blade. CEO Petrocelli was recognized in 2013 Best In Biz and awarded as a top tech executive.
Liquidware Labs
Co-Founder and CEO: David Bieneman
Alpharetta, Ga
Liquidware Labs was winner of VMware's prestigious Technology Innovator Partner of the Year award. The desktop virtualization power's channel sales were up 102 percent in 2013. Look for a big Liquidware kick in desktop virtualization deployments as a result of Windows XP end of life.
Microsoft
CEO: Satya Nadella
Redmond, Wash.
Microsoft continues to make steady gains climbing the data center ladder with Hyper-V. It got high marks for major new Hyper-V product functionality and features. It also rolled out a new certification program aimed at VMware Certified Professionals. Microsoft needs to be given credit for its relentless and indefatigable Hyper-V offensive.
Midokura
Co-Founder and CEO: Dan Mihai Dumitriu
San Francisco
The software-defined networking superstar spent two years building MidoNet, a network virtualization breakthrough that allows cloud users to provision virtual switches, routers, and firewalls. The company received $17.3 million in Series A funding last year to step up its all-out offensive to revolutionize cloud infrastructure.
PernixData
Co-Founder and CEO: Poojan Kumar
San Jose, Calif.
PernixData CEO Poojan Kumar, one of the driving forces behind Oracle's Exadata system, has broken new ground once again, delivering the first Flash hypervisor: PernixData FVP. The virtual machine storage performance breakthrough has won the company multiple awards.
Red Hat
President and CEO: Jim Whitehurst
Raleigh, N.C.
Data center stalwart Red Hat with its open source software has been pushing aggressively into the cloud with Red Hat Cloud Infrastructure 4.0, an infrastructure as a service (IaaS) platform. Partners say a new partnership with Cisco opens the door to even bigger market gains for Red Hat.
RES Software
CEO: Klaus Besier
Plymouth Meeting, Pa.
RES Software is changing how IT departments deliver virtualization technology with a "consumerization of IT" friendly approach. The company recently announced RES IT store, an app store-like self-service model has resulted in a 25 percent reduction of IT service tickets.
SolarWinds Inc.
President and CEO: Kevin Thompson
Austin, Texas
The company's IT management software is fueling big sales gains. In the fourth quarter, SolarWinds reported 32 percent year-over-year sales growth to $97.1 million. For 2014, the company expects 22 to 25 percent sales growth to up to $420 million. Over 425 of the Fortune 500 now use SolarWinds' software.
Teradici
President and CEO: Dan Cordingley
Santa Clara, Calif.
The company's secure PC-over-IP technology is changing the face of desktop virtualization. The popular offering is part of Amazon Web Services' desktop as a service offering. Teradici was No. 12 on the Deloitte Technology Fast 50.
Tricerat
Co-founder, President and CEO: John Byrne
Columbia, Md.
The company's mission is to simplify the lives of IT administrators. That's just what the Tricerat has done with its Simplify Printing TX product, a bring-your-own-device (BYOD) printing solution that provides printing from any smartphone or virtual desktop.
Unidesk Corp.
President and CEO: Don Bulens
Marlborough, Mass.
Unidesk offers breakthrough technology for simplifying virtual desktop infrastructure (VDI) deployments. The company posted a whopping 240 percent increase in sales in 2013 with its customer base growing to 580. Unidesk was also named a "Major Player" in researcher IDC's worldwide client virtualization 2013 vendor analysis.
VDIWorks
President and CEO: Saad Hussain
Austin, Texas.
The VDI platform provider just announced VDI Pro Cloud and Virtual Desktop platform with high-end management features for administrators and ease of use with HTML5 capabilities.
VDIWorks also recently added high-end graphics capability to its arsenal with support for Nvidia GRID and Microsoft Remote FX.
Veeam Software
Founder, President and CEO: Ratmir Timashev
Columbus, Ohio
The premier provider of VMware backup/virtualization management with sights on crossing the $1 billion sales mark in five years, Veeam recently launched new technical training/certification programs including a Veeam Certified Engineer. Sales for the company's cloud provider program are growing at more than 100 percent. The five-year-old company now has 20,000 partners and 80,000 customers.
Virtual Bridges Inc.
CEO: Sam Cece
Austin, Texas
Virtual Bridges recently completed its most profitable quarter in its history with bookings more than doubling from the year-ago quarter. The company's VERDE 7 desktop-as-a-service platform is quickly gaining traction in government and education.
VMTurbo
CEO: Ben Nye
Valhalla, N.Y.
VMTurbo's economic scheduling system is delivering record-setting payback for customers. Multinational telecommunications company NII Holdings Inc., for example, saved $160,000 in Amazon Web Services costs by right sizing their AWS environment after using VMTurbo. VMTurbo is ranked No. 26 on Forbes Most Promising Companies List.
VMware
CEO: Pat Gelsinger
Palo Alto, Calif.
The company that started the virtualization revolution is upping the ante with its move into storage with VSAN and its aggressive expansion into end-user computing with its $1.17 billion acquisition of enterprise mobile management security high-flyer AirWatch. Don't bet against VMware CEO Gelsinger.