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Venture Beat Deepfake Cyberattacks

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SiliconANGLE | Hot Hand: Tech Earnings Signal a Continued Booming Market

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TechTarget | VMware Tanzu Application Platform Reflects PaaS Shifts

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TechRepublic | Is Your IT Department Ready to Go Fully Remote Again Due to COVID-19?

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Real Change, Powered by Human Difference

VMware Power of Difference Community DEI

(From left) VMware Chief Communications Officer Joan Stone joins CEO Raghu Raghuram and President Sumit Dhawan at Strategy Day before VMworld 2021.

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Welcome to VMware News &#038; Stories

VMware Leaders at Strategy Day 2021

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How VMware Is Helping Industries Accelerate Innovation

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How Digital Twins Are Revolutionizing Manufacturing

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The Internet Is Broken. What Will It Take to Fix It?

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Getting Personal on Leading an ESG Agenda

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Surge in Cyberattacks Targets the Anywhere Workforce

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Careers aren’t just about work. Fulfilling jobs should also offer employees personal and professional development, a support network, and a sense of belonging. That’s why Employee Resource Groups (ERGs), also known as affinity groups, play an important part in many organizations.

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ERGs also provide many benefits, from recruitment to retention and education. These employee communities are a critical resource to inform what is and is not working.

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Every ERG is different. At VMware, we celebrate our people from a wide variety of dynamic backgrounds, experiences and perspectives. Collectively, we refer to our ERGs as Power of Difference communities or PODs.

Through these groups, we encourage everyone to <a href="https://www.vmware.com/company/diversity.html" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">bring their authentic selves to work</a>. We understand that making VMware more diverse, equitable and inclusive for our employees, customers and communities is fundamental to who we are. We also believe it’s essential to our success.

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Power of Difference Communities

VMware’s PODs are the employee-powered engines that fuel our DEI efforts. Seven global demographic PODs strengthen networks for women and underrepresented groups. These groups are open to anyone in the company and designed to help participants grow as leaders, engage with other communities, and drive business impact.

Here's a quick look at our POD communities and what they’re doing to effect change.

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Increasing broader Asian representation and inclusion in tech, creating an environment where all Asians can thrive.

Envisioning a time and place where DEI becomes innate to all that we do.

The Black@VMware business resource group supports the transformation of VMware's people practices and processes, ensuring that diversity and inclusion is applied to each and every aspect.

Striving to create a welcoming and inclusive workplace for employees of all abilities.

The Disability@VMware POD’s goal is to foster a culture where everyone feels empowered by their unique talents and to work towards advancing VMware’s dialogue and progress on disability inclusion, accommodation strategies, and physical and technological accessibility. 

Strengthening VMware’s inclusive culture and enhancing its business impact by elevating the Latino community’s representation and leadership.

Providing a safe and inclusive environment for Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, and Queer employees and our Allies (LGBTQA) to advocate for equal rights and respect for everyone at VMware.

Working with VMware leadership and the broader employee community to grow our outreach to veterans, provide leaders with resources to better leverage the unique skills that veterans can bring to teams, and create opportunities for the advancement of veterans within VMware.

Envisioning a VMware where all women are connected, empowered, safe, heard, recognized, and that we belong. We attract the best female talent who drive innovation, challenge the norms, and thrive in our ecosystem. Women are recognized and celebrated by the VMware community, because we are all champions for equality.

VMware’s Culture Is Built on EPIC2 Values

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Explore VMware's Power of Difference (POD) communities and the company's commitment to fostering diversity, equity and inclusion.

Real Change, Powered by Human Difference | VMware Stories

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A note to our media, influencer and industry analyst communities.

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And now, on behalf of our Global Communications team, I’m excited to welcome you to our new “VMware News & Stories” platform. 

Bringing VMware’s Innovation Culture to Our Newsroom

Our mission is to give you a single, best-in-class destination with a modern and integrated digital experience that delivers VMware’s news and stories in a more personal and engaging way. With this new platform, we’ll deliver:

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This was a massive undertaking, so I want to say a heartfelt thank you and congratulations to the talented group of people who brought “VMware News & Stories” to life—just in time for <a href="https://www.vmware.com/vmworld/en/index.html">VMworld 2021</a>.

We’re mere weeks away from our biggest event of the year. And with Raghu Raghuram and Sumit Dhawan at the helm, it’s one of the most important VMworlds in our history.

In partnership with the VMworld 2021 team, we’re working fast and furiously across the globe. And we have some major surprises up our sleeves, from the general session to news announcements and the influencer experience. It’s going to be a VMworld to remember—and one you won’t want to miss.

<a href="https://www.vmware.com/vmworld/en/index.html" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Click here to learn more, check out the agenda and register</a>.

On behalf of our company and Global Communications team, thank you for being part of our community. We’re honored to have you on this journey with us.

So, with that, take a look around. Read our stories. Learn about our leaders, technologies and customers. Sign up for our newsletter. Engage with us via <a href="https://twitter.com/vmwarenews" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">@VMwareNews</a>. And most importantly, please reach out to our team with ways we can continue to improve the experience.

VMworld 2021 Media Kit

Joan Stone

VMware CCO Joan Stone: "On behalf of our Global Communications team, I’m excited to welcome you to our new 'VMware News & Stories' platform."

Welcome to VMware News & Stories - Bringing VMware’s Innovation Culture to Our Newsroom

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As we shift to more permanent hybrid workforces and lifestyles, companies have had to adapt to change at a rapid pace. The upside of this is an outpouring of innovation, causing everyone to rethink what is possible. VMware’s Global Industries Group has curated expertise in a variety of sectors, including financial services, healthcare, and retail. This has given us a unique perspective on how organizations have adapted to three macro trends that have been bubbling up across industries.

Customers Are Interacting with Businesses in New Ways

As employees shifted to remote work and customers began needing new services online, companies scrambled to update their digital offerings. A digital transformation plan that might have had a 5-year implementation window had to be condensed down into 5 months—in some cases, just 5 weeks. And even as in-person engagement becomes more feasible again, digital usage is likely to remain a preferred channel moving forward.

Consumer Expectations for Digital Experiences Are Higher 

As more of life moves online, consumers are looking for tech and services that just work. They want simple interfaces, a personalized experience, and solutions that offer them convenience – and they are increasingly willing to try out new brands to satisfy these needs. This means that companies don’t just have to build better digital experiences than their competition—they have to match the best-in-class experiences consumers have gotten used to from the Amazons and Apples of the world.

Navigating the Complexity of Technology Is … Complex 

In the face of new customer demands and rising consumer expectations, companies have to outpace the competition while contending with a number of competing agendas. Their focus needs to be on:

And all of the above need to be done while maintaining or reducing expense budgets and upskilling/reskilling talent.  

Having spent much of my career in technology, I was sure I knew the value that VMware could provide when I first joined the company. Just to pressure test my understanding, I sat down and mapped out the business outcomes and challenges that I and my peers were tackling. I thought about every problem or pain point in the digital space that I’d experienced during my time in financial services or that I had seen in the wider industry. Then I dug deep into the features and capabilities of all of VMware’s products and services. The results were revelatory.

For every business outcome or challenge, I saw a clear path on how VMware could deliver value. However, there was a gap between what I knew of VMware, and the industry outcomes we actually contribute to. These are not simple problems that are being solved. Right now, companies are looking at competing priorities of complex systems. How do you build new modern cloud native apps while maintaining the estate of existing apps? Deliver at a rapid pace while demonstrating control? Enable innovation while being compliant with regulation and defending against cybercriminals? Underpinning all of these problems are the constraints of creating a digital/technology driven culture and attracting the key skills needed into the business while driving employee retention.

Bridging this divide is the value proposition of what we’re now doing in the Global Industries Group. We’re combining our expertise on VMware’s products with a deep knowledge and understanding of individual industries. This unique perspective enables us to deliver solutions to help our customers achieve the business outcomes they have set forth for their digital agendas. Our goal is to show up as a thought partner, guided only by our desire to help our customers achieve their transformation goals.

VMware meets customers wherever they are on the journey – it helps them manage all of this duality. We can show you how to build modern apps while maintaining the fleet, manage the existing data centers while moving to the cloud, protect and defend from cybercrime, enable a workforce both in and out of the office, and leverage our tools to reskill the workforce at the same time.

In a post-pandemic world driven by increased digital engagement, higher consumer expectations, and constrained resources, VMware is focused on providing solutions that solve the unique challenges of every industry. We aren’t just looking at the pressing issues of today, but we have our finger on the pulse of emerging trends of tomorrow. We are going to differentiate ourselves by being the partner that simplifies the complexity of IT and provides the digital foundation for innovation of the future.

Jennifer Manry

As we shift to more permanent hybrid workforces and lifestyles, companies have had to adapt and accelerate innovation across industries.

Companies are adapting to change at a rapid pace, causing everyone to rethink what is possible.

Helping Industries Accelerate Innovation

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Helping Industries Accelerate Innovation - VMware News and Stories

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TechTarget | VMware Tanzu Application Platform Reflects PaaS Shifts - VMware News and Stories

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TechRepublic | Is Your IT Department Ready to Go Fully Remote Again Due to COVID-19? - VMware News and Stories

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Getting 100% transparency into physical assets around the globe is becoming a gamechanger for modern factory operations.

Digital twin technology is going mainstream at global manufacturers.

<a href="https://www.accenture.com/us-en/insights/technology/_acnmedia/Thought-Leadership-Assets/PDF-4/Accenture-Tech-Vision-2021-Full-Report.pdf">Accenture</a> envisions digital twins among the top five strategic technology trends to watch in 2021 and 2022.

The definition of a digital twin, according to the <a href="https://www.digitaltwinconsortium.org/initiatives/the-definition-of-a-digital-twin.htm" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Digital Twin Consortium</a>, is "a virtual representation of real-world entities and processes, synchronized at a specified frequency and fidelity."

In plain language, this means a digital twin is an exactvirtual copy (or twin) of a physical thing.

The “thing” can be anything that has connected sensors that are capable of sending information to and from the virtual model.

For example, an automotive manufacturer could have a critical component in its assembly line sending continuous data about how quickly it’s processing materials back to a digital twin. The goal: without examining the physical component, workers can tell how it is performing—or will perform—by looking at the digital twin.

With digital twins, manufacturers hope to do any number of things better, such as:

Because it is wide-reaching technology, digital twins can be used throughout the entire manufacturing lifecycle—from engineering, to design, production and operations.

In manufacturing, organizations can create digital twins <a href="https://slcontrols.com/en/what-is-digital-twin-technology-and-how-can-it-benefit-manufacturing/">at various levels</a>:

Digital twin technology is being used in many ways. These are five of the most common applications and their benefits.

By monitoring and automatically responding to continuous data from sensors on the factory floor, teams can improve quality and dramatically reduce, if not eliminate, costly rework. Digital twins:

Continuous monitoring is much more effective than random inspection. Digital twins also allow teams to visualize products in use by real users in real time. Ultimately, this helps brands spot defects or anticipate issues before customers do.

Engineers that use digital twins as virtual prototypes during product design have low-cost, low-risk ways to perform simulations or proof-of-concept (PoC) templates before investing in solid material prototypes. This can dramatically reduce the number of physical iterations required to get the product into production, saving both time and money.

3.      Perform Predictive Maintenance

Sensors in a manufacturing component, device or process generate a plethora of data in real time. Teams then can use AI and advanced analytics to pinpoint potential issues and proactively address. This allows time to schedule preventive maintenance that is most convenient for operations, which in turn helps:

4.      Enhance the Customer Experience

Digital twins extend beyond factory walls, helping teams understand in real time how customers are using and enjoying products. Virtual prototypes collect a rich store of data that tells workers precisely how products are performing in the real world. With that data, design and engineering teams know what’s needed to improve customer experience, especially related to the user interface.

Manufacturers using digital twins can reduce risk in two ways. First, by iterating more often in testing and product validation. Secondly, by pinpointing potential process issues on the factory line before embarking on production. Teams can simulate different scenarios and disruptions, helping them mitigate any issues in advance. This greatly reduces production risk.

Digital Twin Insights Improve Business Outcomes

Digital twins are becoming critical “factory of the future” technologies. They provide insights into production lines, manufacturing processes and end-user experience. With a digital twin, workers can troubleshoot problems, identify future challenges and, ultimately, enhance customer satisfaction.

Getting 100% transparency into physical assets with digital twins innovation is a gamechanger for modern factory operations.

Getting 100% transparency into physical assets is becoming a gamechanger for modern factory operations.

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VentureBeat | Deepfakes in Cyberattacks Aren’t Coming. They’re Already Here - VMware News and Stories

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SiliconANGLE | Hot Hand: Tech Earnings Signal a Continued Booming Market - VMware News and Stories

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The threat landscape changed in a number of ways as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, and organizations are scrambling to defend against opportunistic cyberattacks.

That was the key takeaway from <a href="https://www.carbonblack.com/resources/global-security-insights-report-2021-intelligence-from-the-global-cybersecurity-landscape/">VMware's 2021 Global Security Insights Report</a>, compiled from a survey of 3,542 CIOs, CTOs and CISOs from across the globe in December 2020.

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Nearly 80% reported increased cyberattacks due to employees working from home. A similar percentage said that attacks had become more sophisticated, while 4-out-of-5 breaches were considered to be material. Sixty-one percent of respondents acknowledged the need to view security differently due to the expanded threat surface.<a href="https://www.carbonblack.com/resources/global-security-insights-report-2021-intelligence-from-the-global-cybersecurity-landscape/"> </a>

Cyberattacks increased for a number of reasons during the pandemic. First, the threat surface expanded as organizations everywhere sent employees home to work remotely. Workers were suddenly sharing computers with their children for remote learning as well as a home network with any number of smart devices.

Additionally, traditional crime moved online. "Cybercrime cartels were empowered by the pandemic because traditional organized crime couldn't operate due to the lockdown," said VMware Head of Cybersecurity Strategy Tom Kellermann during the <a href="https://youtu.be/E8LVgaDsJ4A">Global Security Insights Report livestream</a> interview. Many cyber cartels created a sophisticated quasi-startup structure featuring developers and QA teams. Some even have the support of international governments.

Kellermann reported that some countries consider cybercriminals to be national assets. "There is a protection going on there, because many times governments view these groups as a way to offset economic sanctions and a way to create proxies to create almost an insurgency against their geopolitical enemies," Kellermann said.

And finally, organizations have been slow to change their security mindset, while simultaneously moving a lot of their infrastructure to the cloud. &#8220;Attackers are opportunists, so we have to be opportunists as well,” VMware Senior Security Strategist James Alliband said. “We have to change the status quo [and] make sure that the traditional security processes we have in place aren&#8217;t necessarily going to affect us for the future.”
So how can organizations protect themselves?
<h2>Not All Clouds Are Created Equal</h2>
While nearly all of those surveyed were employing a cloud-first strategy, there seems to be a degree of misplaced faith in public cloud security. Kellermann advised to think of a public cloud environment as &#8220;a very nice apartment building in a very tough neighborhood.” Security should be built from a zero trust perspective and needs to be incorporated from the ground up.
<img loading="lazy" class="size-full wp-image-32899 aligncenter" src="https://news-editor.vmware.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/08/vmw-banner-98-quote_081821.png" alt="98% of security professionals surveyed said they already use or plan to shift to a cloud-first strategy." width="775" height="600" srcset="https://news-editor.vmware.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/08/vmw-banner-98-quote_081821.png 775w, https://news-editor.vmware.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/08/vmw-banner-98-quote_081821.png?resize=300,232 300w, https://news-editor.vmware.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/08/vmw-banner-98-quote_081821.png?resize=768,595 768w" sizes="(max-width: 775px) 100vw, 775px" />
VMware Principal Cybersecurity Strategist Rick McElroy compared IT teams building infrastructure to the construction of an apartment building: &#8220;You have your architects that come in and they&#8217;re planning for things like plumbing, power, enough square footage. They&#8217;re not planning for somebody to run into that apartment building and kick your door in. That&#8217;s our job.&#8221;
Alliband agreed, saying, &#8220;You&#8217;ve got to secure these environments from the get-go and build that into your strategy.&#8221;
<h2>Build in Early Detection Systems</h2>
Organizations must find bad actors before they attack. Rather than putting all your faith in security processes that keep threats out of your environment, it&#8217;s crucial to find them if and when they get inside. And attacks don&#8217;t tend to happen immediately. Typically, attackers spend a couple of weeks exploring your infrastructure before the attack, so it&#8217;s possible to discover them before they take action.
Kellermann said, &#8220;You need to assume that prevention will fail at some point. When it does, how quickly can you detect and respond?&#8221;
CISOs are looking for a way to discover those threats. &#8220;What CISOs are really looking for are solutions out there that can give them visibility into these cloud environments,” McElroy said. They&#8217;re looking for controls that are uniform and auditable, and that can follow their data across various cloud environments.
<h2>Secure the Anywhere Workspace</h2>
Remote work exploded during the pandemic. And it appears that the anywhere workplace is here to stay. But with so many workers off-prem, the attack surface expands exponentially. With a number of devices operating on a home network, multiple vulnerabilities exist.
&#8220;There&#8217;s a lack of digital distancing in homes and really we need to pay attention to that. … Your work device should not be on the same network as your smart devices, period,&#8221; Kellermann said. Securing the remote environment is a must.
<h2>Simplify Security</h2>
Security has become complex, with a variety of controls and widgets that can be exploited by adversaries. &#8220;We have to start simplifying security, that&#8217;s number one. There are just too many tools that have too many gaps,&#8221; McElroy said.
As companies use a number of tools to secure various parts of their business, more risk develops if they don&#8217;t communicate with each other. One security app might not know that another security app has experienced a breach. &#8220;You should really standardize on one platform. And whatever platform that is, you should standardize on it soon,&#8221; Kellermann said.
<h2>Hit Attackers Where It Hurts</h2>
Ultimately, cybercriminals get into the business because it&#8217;s profitable. A strong driver of their business is that much of the work is automated. McElroy suggests that companies make it more expensive for cybercriminals to do business by forcing them to slow down and do more work manually.
&#8220;If every single piece of ransomware was custom written, now we&#8217;re starting to bust up that economy. Now they actually can&#8217;t get a massive [return on investment] because their time investment is too high,” McElroy said. “Simply put, we have to make them spend more time. &#8230; We have to deploy tech to start making it harder.&#8221;
<h2>The New Normal</h2>
Ultimately, the threat landscape has changed greatly and it&#8217;s not going back to the way it was.
&#8220;We have to realize that is the norm and it&#8217;s not going to change anytime soon. If I can start to shift my mindset, realize I do live in a bad neighborhood and I&#8217;m responsible for my own self-defense, then I&#8217;m going to change my own behavior,” McElroy said. “I&#8217;m going to change the culture of the organization that I&#8217;m with, and to do that I need something like a neighborhood watch.&#8221;

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The pandemic has brought security front and center for business leaders. McElroy encouraged security leaders to seize that opportunity: &#8220;We helped organizations stay up and running during a global pandemic. The organizations are happy with a lot of the security leaders and the way we were able to do that. Let&#8217;s take advantage of that just like the attackers are taking advantage of this disaster, and let&#8217;s put a flag out a little further than we ever thought was achievable.&#8221;

Cyberattacks are surging, according to VMware's Global Security Insights Report. Learn how to protect your organization against an expanded threat surface.

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When it comes to data, the center of gravity is moving from the network core to the edge. This shift is due to new, interactive applications that must run at the edge to perform as intended. On the consumer side, augmented reality and virtual reality (AR/VR), connected vehicles, and immersive gaming are emerging onto the scene. On the industry side, 5G has made the use of collaborative robots, drone fleets and digital twins a reality.

These apps produce an enormous amount of data. How enormous? Consider a set of sensors monitoring a complex piece of machinery can generate terabytes of data each day. It&#8217;s easy to imagine an entire factory generating petabytes (or, a million gigabytes) of data per month. The Internet as it’s built today, from the core out, cannot handle this volume of data. If we want to see these new applications flourish, we need a new Internet. One that is built from the edge in.
<h2>What Is the Edge?</h2>
Edge computing brings compute, network and storage closer to where data is created and consumed (versus sending it back to a cloud or centralized data center for processing). This is important when speed and latency are non-negotiable. Like when sensors on an autonomous car collect and analyze data to predict the vehicle’s next move.

Running an application at the edge may also appease certain privacy and security concerns. Retailers, for example, use smart surveillance apps to learn about customers’ shopping behaviors and provide them with a more personalized shopping experience. A facial recognition app can identify you (and your purchase history) when you walk into a store. It can then signal for in-store digital signage to change as you move through the store, so the ads are more relevant to you. In this scenario, keeping customer purchase and biometric data close to the store location limits some privacy and security risk.
What exactly makes up “the edge”? It’s hard to say.

Kaniz Mahdi, vice president of Distributed Edge at VMware, explained the edge conundrum quite succinctly, “The list of interactive applications enabled by distributed edge computing keeps getting longer. And yet, when we look closely at many of them, we reach an unavoidable conclusion: There is no single location for the edge. It’s nowhere, but everywhere.”
Complexity at the edge makes building a next-generation Internet quite a challenge.
<h2>The Case for an Open Grid</h2>
The future of the Internet is a topic many technology leaders are pondering, including Cole Crawford, CEO of edge infrastructure company Vapor IO.
He commented, “The old expression, ‘what got us here won’t get us there’ applies for where we are headed as a species. We are not going to get to the promises of 5G or beyond if we don’t start thinking about changing the architecture of the Internet and identifying what we can do today to make it better.” <a href="https://news.vmware.com/subscribe"><img loading="lazy" class="alignright wp-image-24111 " style="font-style: normal; font-weight: 400; font-size: 16px; font-family: proxima-nova, 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; width: 315px;" src="https://news-editor.vmware.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/04/RADIUS-Digest-Square-CTA-300x300.png" alt="Purple and blue promotion to subscribe to the Radius Digest" width="300" height="291" /></a> He envisions an evolution of the Internet where it becomes a global, shared platform – an Open Grid – that distributes compute, data, and intelligence to when and where it’s needed, on demand.
What will the world look like as the Internet evolves to an Open Grid? Let’s consider an example.
Imagine attending a game at your favorite team’s stadium. Only this time, the team owner has installed several new immersive experiences throughout the venue. Connected wristbands to make entering the stadium and paying for concessions as easy as a flick of the wrist. VR headsets that display real-time player statistics as you watch them run, jump, catch and throw in front of your eyes. In-stadium mobile apps that encourage engagement between fans as they watch their team emerge victorious.
These experiences require tremendous amounts of compute power and network bandwidth – but only in the few hours when fans pack into the stadium. With an Open Grid in place, the applications can request the resources they require so everything runs precisely on the days and times, and in the places, for which they are needed.
<h2>A Path Forward</h2>
Rearchitecting the Internet so it can power the applications that will drive how we interact and work together is a profoundly important task. Perhaps one of the most important tasks we face as a society. It will require the best and brightest to come together and collaborate on solutions. To get us to this future faster, Mahdi and Crawford spearheaded the creation of the <a href="https://www.opengridalliance.org/">Open Grid Alliance</a> (OGA), an industry alliance that aims to define and accelerate the Open Grid.

Crawford explained, “The vision of the Open Grid Alliance is too grand to be achieved by a single technology provider. The Open Grid will only emerge from deep industry collaborations, and that’s why we formed the alliance. We and our industry partners plan to accelerate a decades-long journey of innovation at all levels of the stack.”
The Open Grid Alliance will work to forge partnerships between technology vendors, enterprises, academic institutions and technology foundations to advance Open Grid technologies. <a href="https://www.vmware.com/company/news/releases/vmw-newsfeed.New-Open-Grid-Alliance-Aims-to-Rearchitect-the-Internet.1627536f-7bca-4967-b9fb-c88bc948c0a6.html">VMware and Vapor IO</a> are joined by Dell Technologies, DriveNets, MobiledgeX, and PacketFabric, Crown Castle, CBRE and many others as founding members.
Together, these members will deploy Open Grid innovation zones in major cities to implement reference architectures that incorporate all levels of the stack, from real estate to applications. Ultimately, through this work, the Open Grid will become a cloud-neutral and carrier-neutral edge that is universally accessible and widely distributed. The Open Grid Alliance will also identify the needs and requirements for full operational deployment of the Open Grid on a global scale.

Mahdi expanded, “We see the Open Grid as essential to solving key challenges we currently face with full scale deployment of the Open Grid. And, we don’t stop here. Our ambition for the Grid extends to 2030 and beyond. We see the Open Grid Alliance as our breeding ground for discovery and verification of research and new technologies that support VMware’s 2030 vision for Equity, Sustainability and Trust.”

The opportunity at the edge is clear. And the need to evolve our current Internet to seize this opportunity is evident. The path forward is less clear and evident, however. It will be a long and winding journey. But if we can make progress together, the Internet’s future, and our future, is bright.

If we want to see new applications flourish, we need a new Internet. One that is built from the edge in. What exactly makes up “the edge?”

The Internet Is Broken. What Will It Take to Fix It? - VMware News and Stories

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When I was about 10 years old, my parents took me on a hike into the hills near our home in Johannesburg, South Africa. We climbed until we reached a clearing looking out over the city. I’d never seen it that way before—both sprawling and small at the same time.
My eyes were drawn to a brown haze hanging over the skyline, so I asked my dad what it was. After he told me it was pollution, I said: “When I grow up, I’m going to build a giant vacuum cleaner that sucks all of that pollution out of the sky.”
I’ll be the first to admit: I haven’t built the vacuum. Yet. I still sometimes find myself thinking about how it could be done. But I’ve never lost my connection to that girl on the hill. The one who could envision a future that was different from today, and who wanted to do her part to make it possible.
Fast forward to the moment we are in today. The release of the <a href="https://www.ipcc.ch/report/ar6/wg1/" target="_blank" rel="noopener" name="&#038;lpos=content_company : 255">latest Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report</a> last week is a stark and unequivocal call-to-action for the world. While not unexpected, the report’s conclusions are sobering, even to those of us who have committed our life’s work in pursuit of sustainability. In moments like this, staying grounded in “our personal why” can be a powerful catalyst.  
For me, this is to imagine how empowered that girl would be to see me now: a woman working at one of the most innovative tech companies in the world, leading its first Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) office, determined to make a difference by driving an <a href="https://www.vmware.com/2030agenda/2030-letter-nicola-acutt.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener" name="&#038;lpos=content_company : 256">ambitious agenda</a> that aims for nothing short of creating a more equitable, sustainable and resilient world.
In the decade that I’ve worked at VMware, I’ve seen corporate responsibility evolve from being peripheral to the company to being a part of everything at the company. Today, ESG at VMware isn’t a program or initiative—it’s a complete realignment in how we think about the long-term future of our business.
What’s behind this seismic shift? First and foremost, ESG is an overdue business imperative. And while the events of 2020 brought an increased global awareness, the challenges facing our world escalate. It has now become more evident than before that our lives, our business and our communities are interconnected in ways both large and small.
This interdependence means that ESG is also foundational to any business’ resilience and future success. Potential investors, customers and employees aren’t only looking for healthy balance sheets, innovative products and great benefit programs anymore. They want to know what you stand for—and how what you’re doing creates value for people and the planet. And they’re using what they find out to make funding, buying and employment decisions.
Late last year, VMware announced its commitment to ESG with the <a href="https://www.vmware.com/2030agenda.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener">2030 Agenda</a>: 30 specific, measurable goals we’ll achieve by 2030 that will:
<ul>
<li>Broaden trust in VMware and its products, people, and industry leadership by focusing on security, keeping people’s information safe, working from a privacy-first mindset, and being transparent about how we do business.</li>
<li>Increase equity by enabling our company and our customers can create a distributed and digital workforce future that is accessible, inclusive, and just for all.</li>
<li>Drive sustainability by decarbonizing IT infrastructure for our customers and partners, as well as our own operations and supply chain.</li>
</ul>
The most important thing about these commitments is that they won’t just impact what we do at VMware. We’re baking them into the products we make and the solutions we offer our customers. In this way, we are contributing to support our stakeholders make progress on their ESG goals—like our own Fibonacci spiral amplifying our impact even further.
The 2030 Agenda is ambitious. I’ll be the first to admit it. Achieving our goals will take relentless focus and require not only commitment from the top but also that of our 35,000+ employees around the world. But I’m confident we’ll get there. Because we must get there.
I sometimes think about the girl on the hill and her vacuum. It’s family lore at this point: the moment my passion sparked, and my path was set. But more often, I think of my son. He’s a few years older than I was when I first dreamed of the cleaner, better future I wanted for the world. Now, I dream of the safer, more equitable and climate-resilient future I want for him. I know it’s within our grasp—we just have to seize it.
In the coming weeks, I’ll take a deeper dive into the three pillars of VMware’s 2030 Agenda: sustainability, equity and trust. Until then, why is ESG personal to you?
 
Follow Nicola:
<ul>
<li>On Twitter: <a href="https://twitter.com/nicolaacutt" target="_blank" rel="noopener">@NicolaAcutt</a></li>
<li>On LinkedIn: <a href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/nicolaacutt/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Nicola Acutt</a></li>
</ul>