VMware Sees 'Enormous' Telco OpportunityVMware Sees 'Enormous' Telco Opportunity

LAS VEGAS -- VMworld -- VMware sees an "enormous" opportunity both selling to, and partnering with, communications service providers: In addition to connecting with telcos as customers, VMware is also teaming with them to sell products and services to enterprise customers.

"Telco is an enormous opportunity for us," VMware Inc. (NYSE: VMW) CEO Pat Gelsinger said at the VMworld customer and partner conference keynote Monday. "Data centers and cloud today are over 80% virtualized. The telco network is 1% virtualized." The telco industry is almost as big as enterprise IT, which VMware dominates, and that industry is "almost entirely un-virtualized," Gelsinger said. Just virtualizing existing networks will grow VMware's business significantly, and the migration towards 5G, which will require extensive virtualization for the next-generation network technology's potential to be fully realized, will vastly expand the market even further.

"What an opportunity for us, a virgin market right next to us," Gelsinger said.

And the telco opportunity doesn't end with sales. "We're starting to see telcos not just as consumers of our technologies but as a channel, amplifying our technology for enterprise customers," said Gabriele Di Piazza, VMware VP products and solutions, Telco NFV, in a one-on-one interview with Light Reading.

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