This week at VMworld 2010, VMware, Inc. (NYSE: VMW), the global leader in virtualization and cloud infrastructure, will announce a broad strategy and set of new and emerging products to help businesses and governments move beyond "IT as a Cost Center" to a more business-centric "IT as a Service" model. This new model of IT creates improved approaches at each critical layer of a modern IT architecture: infrastructure, applications and end-user access.

"Two years ago VMware set out a vision to modernize the datacenter and transform IT -- this week we are taking significant steps forward to bring this new world of IT as a Service and hybrid cloud computing to reality," said Paul Maritz, president and CEO of VMware.

IT as a Service is the transformation of IT to a more business-centric approach, focusing on outcomes such as operational efficiency, competitiveness and rapid response. This means IT shifts from producing IT services to optimizing production and consumption of those services in ways consistent with business requirements. This changes the role of IT from a cost center to a center of strategic value.

"VMware's work in cloud computing will help us reach our strategic vision of using virtualization to improve economics by using resources more efficiently and delivering our products to our customers faster," said Glenn Harper, vice president and chief infrastructure architect, Sabre Holdings. "VMware's cloud infrastructure solutions will help us focus on the features our customers need -- rather than technologies needed to support IT. We are very excited about the direction VMware is taking with its cloud infrastructure portfolio, making cloud computing a reality for the enterprise and for Sabre."

Cloud Infrastructure: Optimize Modern Datacenters
Central to the VMware IT as a Service strategy is an infrastructure that will enable IT to fundamentally redefine its relationship with the business. This new infrastructure model will enable IT to produce services in a self-service model, with consistent policies and business contracts aligning resources to business needs. Within this model, the physical boundaries that have governed enterprise IT will erode, establishing logical pools of resources combining those of the enterprise datacenter with those provided by external or public cloud providers, without compromising security or quality of service. For the consumer of IT services, the result will be near infinite resources, on demand, with cost structures and performance levels matched to business priorities.

Unlike previous tectonic shifts in IT that required wholesale replacement of infrastructure hardware and software, the VMware vision for infrastructure is based on extending existing investments in hardware and software, enabling IT to achieve unprecedented results in an evolutionary manner.

Cloud Application Platform: The Modern Approach to Application Development
To ensure that the new generation of applications takes full advantage of virtualized and cloud infrastructure, a new cloud application platform is required. The platform combines an application framework that enhances developer productivity and ensures application portability with comprehensive integrated platform services that speed and optimize deployment. Applications built according to this new model will be portable across heterogeneous cloud environments and, when running on VMware-enabled clouds, will be able to intelligently share information with underlying infrastructure to maximize application performance, quality of service and infrastructure utilization.

End User Computing: Manage Users, Not Devices
A pragmatic approach to the cloud not only transforms the datacenter and development, but also end-user computing. VMware's user-centric approach to personal computing will ensure secure access to applications and data from any device, where and when a user needs it. With VMware solutions, IT will gain flexibility in service delivery, improved efficiency and availability while end users gain a superior user experience.

The VMware IT as a Service Strategy

• Provides a Complete Platform for Cloud Computing: A comprehensive, integrated strategy for infrastructure, application platform and end-user computing that spans private, public and hybrid cloud environments.
• Supports an Evolutionary Approach: Carries the value of existing applications forward while driving innovations in infrastructure, application platform and end-user computing.
• Supports an Open Ecosystem: Enterprise computing is not a one-size-fits-all proposition. VMware customers have a choice of infrastructure partners and service providers as well as an open platform that provides application portability and choice of clouds.

"A shift to a services-based relationship and much faster response to demand are two reasons why virtualization fundamentally affects more than IT. Cloud computing is more than an infrastructure change, it is a change in the relationship between IT and the business," said Thomas Bittman, Gartner. "The decoupling created by virtualization, combined with defined service offerings and automation, is a great enabler of cloud computing."

VMworld 2010
VMware President and CEO Paul Maritz and CTO and Senior Vice President of Research and Development Steve Herrod will outline VMware's vision for IT as a Service and demonstrate new virtualization and cloud computing technologies on Tuesday, Aug. 31 at 9 a.m. PT during the General Session keynote presentation, which will be available via webcast at: www.vmware.com/go/vmworld-general-sessions.