VMware Uses Nicira to Lure Business From Cisco
Cables run into a Cisco Systems network data switch in New York, Wednesday, August 8, 2007. Cisco Systems Inc. shares climbed the most in nine months after the company increased its sales forecast on demand for high-speed Internet gear and Web-based phone systems.
Photographer: DANIEL ACKERVMware Inc.’s acquisition of Nicira Inc. is starting to pay off, as businesses embrace software technology that's disrupting sellers of the machines that shuttle data across the Internet and the globe.
Nicira, now VMware NSX, had annualized revenue of $200 million at the end of last year, from almost nothing in 2012 when it was bought for $1.26 billion, according to Martin Casado, a co-founder of Nicira who now oversees the business. Total paying customers more than quadrupled last quarter to 700 from a year earlier, and 65 buyers have signed contracts of $1 million or more, Casado said, disclosing some of the numbers for the first time.