Company4 min read

VMware Completes Acquisition of Carbon Black

Photo for Patrick MorleyPatrick Morley
Delivering Intrinsic, Intelligent, and Informed Security

We are delighted to announce that VMware has completed its acquisition of endpoint security leader Carbon Black. With this move, VMware is launching a new Security Business Unit under the leadership of Patrick Morley, who has led Carbon Black for the past 12 years, and will now serve as  the new group’s general manager, under the executive sponsorship of Sanjay Poonen, Chief Operating Officer, Customer Operations, VMware. 

This team is ready to innovate and it’s ready to disrupt the market. 

Rethinking and Simplifying Security
While spending on cybersecurity exceeded $80 billion in 2018 alone, the last 2 years have seen some of the largest security breakdowns in IT history (Fast Company)1, with major data breaches making headlines nearly every week. CIOs and security teams have reached a frustrating tipping point. And who can blame them?  

The security industry is ripe for innovation and disruption in the form of earnest consolidation. With Carbon Black now a part of the VMware family, we’re rethinking and simplifying security by making it an intrinsic component of your business’s operations. 

Your enterprise is constantly growing and evolving with hybrid environments, dynamic endpoints, and application diversity. Cybersecurity should not be an afterthought or an “add on” – it should be baked into the fabric of your tools, your processes, and your business. This perspective is set to change the game for security practitioners around the world.  

Why VMware + Carbon Black
VMware is likely already a key part of your enterprise. As a result, we’re in the unique position to intrinsically understand how your applications and infrastructure tell a story about your business.

Carbon Black has been a storyteller for years. Its security solutions use advanced analytics to uncover how (and why) attackers behave they way they do, helping to frame a narrative about how to best protect your most critical assets. 

Carbon Black accelerates VMware’s intrinsic security strategy across the most important security control points – network, workload, endpoint, identity and analytics. Carbon Black also provides VMware with a security platform that has powerful data lake and analytics capabilities, backed by artificial intelligence and machine learning. We couldn’t be more excited. VMware is now poised to take a significant leadership role in security for the new age of multi-cloud, modern apps and modern devices.

Security – A Team Sport 
Security needs to be a team sport spanning Network, IT, Operations, Developers, Lines of Business and Security Teams to remove friction, reduce inefficiencies, complexity, and clutter. VMware's intrinsic security vision aims at reducing the number of specialty players while uplifting the state and durability of security. 

We're very excited about how this intrinsic security portfolio will be able to disrupt the industry in a positive way. Together, VMware and Carbon Black will be able to deliver a highly differentiated, intrinsic security platform for Any App running on Any Cloud delivered to Any Device. 

And we're just getting started.

Check out these videos from VMworld US where we unveiled our security strategy:

Forward-Looking Statements 
This blog contains forward-looking statements including, among other things, statements regarding the growth opportunities and expansion of VMware’s offerings associated with the acquisition, accelerating the delivery by VMware of  a modern security platform,  potential benefits to VMware and its customers. These forward-looking statements are subject to the safe harbor provisions created by the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Actual results could differ materially from those projected in the forward-looking statements as a result of certain risk factors, including but not limited to: (1) the ability to realize the anticipated benefits of the proposed acquisition, including the possibility that the expected benefits from the proposed acquisition will not be realized or will not be realized within the expected time period; (2) the ability to successfully integrate Carbon Black into VMware; (3) disruption from the transition making it more difficult to maintain business and operational relationships; (4) negative effects of the consummation of the acquisition on the market price of VMware’s common stock, credit ratings and operating results; (5) ongoing and potential litigation and regulatory actions related to the acquisition; (6) other business effects, including the effects of industry, market, economic, political or regulatory conditions; and (7) other unexpected costs or delays in connection with the acquisition; (7) VMware's customers' ability to accept emerging technology and to transition to new products and computing strategies; (8) competitive factors, including but not limited to VMware’s ability to compete in new industries, the entry of new competitors into the industries in which VMware competes, and the success of new product and marketing initiatives by VMware and VMware's competitors; (9) VMware's ability to enter into and maintain strategically effective partnerships; (10) rapid technological changes in the virtualization software and cloud, end user and mobile computing and security industries; (11) changes to product and service development timelines; (12) VMware's ability to protect its proprietary technology; (13) VMware's ability to attract and retain highly qualified employees; (14) adverse changes in general economic or market conditions; (15) changes in VMware's financial condition; and (16) VMware's relationship with Dell Technologies and Dell's ability to control matters requiring stockholder approval. These forward-looking statements are made as of the date of this blog, are based on current expectations and are subject to uncertainties and changes in condition, significance, value and effect as well as other risks detailed in documents filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission, including VMware’s most recent reports on Form 10-K and Form 10-Q and current reports on Form 8-K that we may file from time to time, which could cause actual results to vary from expectations. VMware assumes no obligation to, and does not currently intend to, update any such forward-looking statements after the date of this blog. 

1Fick, N. February 4, 2019. Why the Culture of Cybersecurity is Broken–and How to Fix It. Fast Company.