VMware by Broadcom‘s recent annual user event Explore in Las Vegas was like no other I can remember in recent history. The most notable change was the crowd size. Since acquiring VMware Inc., Broadcom Inc. has clarified that the focus is on the top 5,000 customers, which created a limited audience. That had a ripple effect on the event as the lack of audience created an Expo Hall that was a virtual ghost town, particularly for the sponsors.
Unlike previous VMware Explore/VMWorld events, which are typically filled with product announcements, this year’s VMware by Broadcom’s user event, Explore 2024, was very light on the news. The most notable announcement at the event in Las Vegas was the unveiling of VMware Cloud Foundation 9 and the company’s mission to be the leader in helping companies build out private clouds.
The communications artificial intelligence wars continue unabated as every unified communications-as-a-service and contact center-as-a-service vendor loads its products with new capabilities to one-up the competition. Today RingCentral Inc. added several new capabilities to RingCX, its AI-powered contact center solution. The California-based contact center solutions provider has added about 300 features to RingCX in the past quarter, bringing the total to more than 1,300.
There hasn’t been a tech tailwind as strong as artificial intelligence since the early days of the internet. Many companies are vying to be the kingpin in the AI battleground, with Nvidia Corp. taking the early lead. The company has kept that position by taking a systems approach to AI. One of the key differentiators for Nvidia has been NVLink and NVSwitch, which enabled better and faster connectivity between graphic processing units to help with inferencing.
Cisco Systems Inc. provided positive numbers in its fiscal fourth-quarter results Wednesday, and there’s a story behind those numbers. The networking giant posted a modest revenue beat of $13.64 billion, $100 million more than consensus estimates. Gross margin, boosted by the acquisition of Splunk Inc., came in at a whopping 67.5%, the highest number for Cisco in 20 years. Product order growth rose 14% year over year, 6% excluding Splunk.