VMware CEO: Telco Cloud and 5G Represent ‘Enormous’ Opportunity

VMware sees a “great opportunity to participate in an enormous market” that is the telecommunications service provider space, said VMware CEO Pat Gelsinger at an MWC press conference on Tuesday. “We have about 60 service providers that use VMware technology to build their telco cloud,” he said, citing Vodafone as “the best example” but adding that operators around the world including NTT, Singtel, and AT&T also use VMware technology. Vodafone started using VMware’s NFV platform in 2017. At the time, Gelsinger called it “our largest-ever telco deal.” Today he said: “We have great momentum with Vodafone as they are using our technology and scale more than others.” VMware just this week announced a deal with AT&T under which the operator will integrate VMware’s VeloCloud SD-WAN with its 5G network. And last week VMware announced a deal with Ericsson that will allow service providers to deploy Ericsson’s virtualized network functions (VNFs) on VMware’s software-defined infrastructure.