When Great Britain’s National Health Service announced last month that VMware Inc. would provide it with access to cloud resources on Amazon Web Services, it was another chapter in VMware’s lengthy history of work with organizations in the public sector.

“Some of our earliest customers were in the public sector,” said Sanjay Poonen (pictured), chief operating officer of VMware. “In the on-premises world, we’re very strong in civilian, military, legislative and judicial branches, and the federal agencies.”

Poonen spoke with John Furrier (@furrier) and Rebecca Knight (@knightrm), co-hosts of theCUBE, SiliconANGLE Media’s mobile livestreaming studio, during the AWS Public Sector Summit in Washington, D.C. They discussed the value of VMware’s strategic partnership with AWS and the important role technology can play in being a force for good (see the full interview with transcript here). (* Disclosure below.)

Commitment to GovCloud

When VMware and Amazon Web Services Inc. jointly announced a strategic partnership in October 2016, it marked not only the coming together of two enterprise computing powerhouses, but also the melding of businesses deeply committed to serving the needs of the public sector.

Last year, VMware extended its public sector commitment by announcing VMware Cloud on AWS GovCloud, a hybrid cloud service designed to enable public sector agencies in the U.S. to leverage a common cloud infrastructure.

“We were looking for ways they could take their technologies into the cloud without having to re-factor and re-platform their applications,” said Poonen, describing VMware’s work on behalf of major public sector clients. “That’s a big deal. That’s the value we brought to the public sector.”

In addition to nurturing the public sector side of its business through partnerships such as those with AWS, VMware has also been sensitive to fostering innovation for a better planet. The company has released an annual “Global Impact Report” since 2016 to document the firm’s progress toward 2020 goals and effect on people and planet.

“We think that technology companies have to think beyond themselves and be a force for good,” Poonen said. “We live in a world where the more important thing is not necessarily how much money you make, but what a force you can be for changing peoples’ lives. That lasts forever.”

Watch the complete video interview below, and be sure to check out more of SiliconANGLE’s and theCUBE’s coverage of the AWS Public Sector Summit. (* Disclosure: TheCUBE is a paid media partner for the AWS Public Sector Summit. Neither Amazon Web Services Inc., the sponsor for theCUBE’s event coverage, nor other sponsors have editorial control over content on theCUBE or SiliconANGLE.)

Photo: SiliconANGLE