VMware Inc. has an extensive research and development division that is committed to furthering the future of technology, and their commitment has been proven through the investment of more and more resources into R&D — with over $542 million invested from November 2019 through January 2019. So what are some key components that help the company keep innovating? It’s collaboration across a variety of fronts and embracing exploration.

“We have the BU structure … and the business units are innovating every day to get products out the door,” said Mornay Van Der Walt (pictured), vice president of research and development at VMware. “But then, in addition to that, we want to give our engineers an avenue to go and explore and … tinker on something that may be related to the day job or completely … unrelated to the day job.”

Van Der Walt spoke with John Furrier (@furrier) and Lisa Martin (@LisaMartinTV), co-hosts of theCUBE, SiliconANGLE Media’s mobile livestreaming studio, during the RADIO event in San Francisco. They discussed the ways VMware helps its engineers innovate and continue to hone R&D into helpful enterprise tech solutions (see the full interview with transcript here). (* Disclosure below.)

Exploring R&D through collaboration across departments and divisions

Exploring is definitely a theme that resonates within VMware. Van Der Walt is the head of The Explorer Group inside of VMware’s R&D division, and this group brings together R&D Innovation Offsite, or RADIO, and other programs to help bring a cohesiveness inside the whole division. The big idea, according to Van Der Walt, is to help foster a sense of community and collaboration among all departments and global divisions in VMware for innovation.

“Because we are such a global R&D … we want to give teams the opportunity to work together, collaborate together, get that diversity of thought going,” Van Der Walt explained. “And so a lot of times, if we do like a hack-a-thon … we actually give bonus points if teams pull from outside of their business units. So if you’ve got an idea, well, let’s make it a diverse idea in terms of the thought and perspective.”

This exploration between departments helps all of the company’s engineers feel like they can take an opportunity to innovate, according to Van Der Walt. It’s very harmful to think that innovation just comes from the R&D department, so it’s important to make sure that anyone can pitch ideas, from brand new engineers to seasoned engineers. VMware has many different ways associates can pitch ideas within the company.

“You take someone who’s just a new college grad … they’ve got a good idea, but they don’t really know how to frame it, pitch it,” Van Der Walt explained. “And so if you got a good idea, and this is your first rodeo, so to speak, we have a program called Tech Talks, where it allows you to actually go and pitch your idea, get some feedback, and that’s sometimes where we get the best feedback.”

Watch the complete video interview below, and be sure to check out more of SiliconANGLE’s and theCUBE’s coverage of the RADIO event. (* Disclosure: TheCUBE is a paid media partner for the VMware RADIO 2019 event. Neither VMware Inc., the sponsor for theCUBE’s event coverage, nor other sponsors have editorial control over content on theCUBE or SiliconANGLE.)

Photo: SiliconANGLE