Five or so years ago, companies were strongly focused on public cloud trends. The message from the tech world was: Forget about on-premises, obliterate data centers, and just go completely public for your computing infrastructure. Companies quickly realized, however, it’s not as easy as they thought to refactor and migrate software applications to remotely managed, virtualized platforms.

Virtualization specialist VMware Inc. made a decision about three years ago not to go into the public cloud business; its strengths lay elsewhere. After selling off its vCloud Air business in 2017, VMware gained the freedom to double down on strategic partnerships in the public cloud arena. VMware’s efforts ultimately led to an unprecedented partnership with Amazon Web Services Inc. for on-prem integration with its Relational Database Services — the first major on-prem move for public cloud behemoth AWS.

“It’s a big deal because RDS is a fast-growing business for [AWS],” said Sanjay Poonen (pictured), chief operating officer of customer operations at VMware. “RDS landing on-premises, [AWS] could try to do on their own, but what better infrastructure to land it on than VMware?”

Poonen spoke with John Furrier (@furrier) and Dave Vellante (@dvellante), co-hosts of theCUBE, SiliconANGLE Media’s mobile livestreaming studio, during the VMworld conference in Las Vegas, Nevada. They discussed the new RDS announcement, as well as a very special guest speaker on Day 2 of the conference. (* Disclosure below.)

The big team-up

With over a billion global users now accessing internet data from office laptops, smartphones and tablets, Poonen recognized early on the impact of the bring-your-own-device trend. Cultivating relationships with the power players of BYOD, such as device maker Apple Inc., search giant Google LLC, and commerce titan Amazon.com Inc., was a crucial step for VMworld in establishing a leadership role not in becoming the public cloud, but rather in bridging its crucial components.

The VMware-AWS team up is of particular interest as it’s a departure from Amazon’s typical partnerships that merely offer shelf space in the AWS Marketplace.

“I think in infrastructure software, VMware and Amazon have some of the best engineers on the planet. Sometimes we have engineers who’ve gone between both companies, so we’re able to put out engineering teams together. This is a joint engineering effort … at a deep level,” Poonen said.

Expertise in software and applied programming interfaces is paramount to VMware’s integrated efforts, as demonstrated by its growing portfolio of software-defined add-ons, including vSAN for connecting storage devices and its secure NSX platform for virtualizing networks. This focus on the right software in the right places with the right partners gives VMware the confidence to stand resilient in the face of shifting market winds, ultimately doubling growth since last year for many of its VM-ready software products, according to Poonen.

The importance of educating everyone

Even as VMware embarks on a new chapter in its tale of cloud missteps and enduring partnerships, the company is looking to “elevate” its story and vision, according to Poonen. In hopes of returning to VMware’s roots in academia with Diane Greene at the helm, guest speaker Malala Yousafzai made her tech conference debut at VMworld to remind attendees of the importance of women and diversity across the industry.

Speaking at VMworld’s Day 2 kickoff, Yousafzai is a young Pakistani woman who was shot point blank by the Taliban for attending school as a girl. Now attending Oxford University, she is an advocate for the education of women, winner of the Nobel Peace Prize, and author of the book “I Am Malala.”

“We figured, why don’t we take 45 minutes out of the 180 minutes total [of the kickoff] and inspire people with somebody who has had an impact on the world? When we brainstormed, we had a lot of names suggested. Malala stood out because she’s never spoken a tech conference before,” Poonen said.

Malala’s story is one of the importance of education for everyone, as well as a message of expanding diversity and inclusion in the tech industry. This is something that VMware believes in quite passionately, Poonen explained, noting the company’s stance on using tech for goodwill.

Watch the complete video interview below, and be sure to check out more of SiliconANGLE’s and theCUBE’s coverage of the VMworld conference. (* Disclosure: VMware Inc. sponsored this segment of theCUBE. Neither VMware nor other sponsors have editorial control over content on theCUBE or SiliconANGLE.)

Photo: SiliconANGLE