Does anyone know where I can find a copy of the original Brian Madden article where he (accurately) slammed the acquisition and predicted job cuts. LinkedIn has taken it down and Google doesn’t seem to be giving any decent results.
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Brian's brother Jack is still at the EUC BU, he'll confirm the reasons why Brian left VMware.
Brian didn't agree with Shankar's desire to manage the ongoing slow decline of the legacy software apps by forming product partnerships to bolt on new capabilities. Brian wanted progressive change, that wasn't going to happen with the inept leadership across the BU.
"I negotiated a severance agreement which would’ve included various clauses about not making public comments"
Simply, Brian shitposted VMware so they'd pay him out. He was wrong on EUC being spun out too.
- 8 billion , nice chunk of change.
Just read that and I have to say its true, but it also comes across very bitter from him because its well known he had some issue with his termination settlement.
I have personally never understood broadcom's reason to buy VMW.
ESX and vCenter are solid products IMO but the rest of the vmware portfolio is a major work in progress that I wouldn't want to inherit.
NSX and vSAN are known internally as the "problem child", while I was still working for vmware I dealt with several clients that straight up told me these products were beta at best and should not have been released.
So many of vmware products were a complete after-thought that didn't get enough attention and were never developed properly.
And the software testing? Nowhere near good enough!
Why, Broadcom keeps promoting the most incompetent people alive.
Am I so out of touch?
No, it's the company that is wrong.
"Away from social media, he’s an elitist pr--k and a vapid narcissist."
And yet Shankar chose to make him a spokesperson for our BU. More evidence that KKR needs to disrupt the failing EUC leadership team. They're all experts on old technology and obsolete business practices. What's wrong with this picture? Everything if you're KKR and agreed to pay $3.8B for this legacy software dinosaur.
"He had good presentation energy but was out of touch with how the world was moving away from thick applications."
From my short experience at the company so far, you just described all of the VMW lifers - those with 10+ years at the company. It's like they're trapped in a time warp. Clueless.
Product champion? Dude was only around because he was at citrix. Vdi was dead long before he quit, he was bitter out of touch with reality of tech moving on beyond vdi. I worked in euc for a long time at vmw and during the Madden era. He was subpar at best and was stuck in the 90's way of thinking.
He was actually the perfect example of rest and vest which is why he runs a pinball company now. He had good presentation energy but was out of touch with how the world was moving away from thick applications.
Shill hired, to shill. Decides to write a report on what the BU should be focusing on, gets told to stay in his lane, pulls surprise pikachu face. Throws tantrum, leaves, nobody notices as he really didn’t do much but shill.
Brian Madden is good at PR and sounding confident. Last time I checked he was pretending to be an AI expert. Away from social media, he’s an elitest pr--k and a vapid narcissist.
archive.org has all the things!! Always!!! forever!!
https://web.archive.org/web/20220526220549/https://www.linkedin.com/today/author/bmadden
I think Brian deserves some credit for being fearless and speaking the truth. Our EUC BU is led and managed by "rest and vest" VPs and Directors. None of them has the courage to move on and do what Brian did, based on his professional integrity. Brian said:
"I left VMware in February 2022 because I was burned out and did not agree with or respect the senior leadership of my BU or the company, and I felt that keeping my job meant I had to lie to customers and partners since I no longer believed what I was communicating about our company and products."
I think that he did the right thing. Customers and partners want the truth, not lies.
Brian's perspective is summarized by this quote from his rant:
"VMware’s EUC business is really just selling Horizon and AirWatch to a dwindling number of existing customers. The only way the EUC business is getting acquired is by a company who’s going to shred expenses and milk the existing products and customers as long as they can."
Now with divestiture to KKR, it has become a prediction fulfilled. Mission accomplished.
Just about everything mentioned about future plans in the KKR press release is not credible. It's their typical public relations narrative when they acquire a troubled asset like the VMware EUC BU. It's like the old adage; pay attention to what I do, not what I say.
"and why would a troll or journo want that exactly?"
Here's the reason why. Brian Madden was a VMware spokesperson who engaged with current and prospective customers as our subject matter expert on the UEM and VDI technology sectors. His "VMware is Toast" rant was a candid assessment of the situation.
When the guy who is a VMware product champion says that your future is bleak based on the plan to sell the company, then people (all stakeholders) take notice. And rightfully so.
Brian merely said what many of us were already thinking about the AVGO deal, and the implications to the EUC BU in a legacy software category with market saturation. Toast!
“why would Broadcom want VMware without EUC?”
Lol
It’s archived at https://archive.is/https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/brian-maddens-brutal-unfiltered-thoughts-broadcom-vmware-brian-madden
and why would a troll or journo want that exactly?