The IT Pro Podcast: How VMware drinks its own champagne

Whether it’s a SaaS tool, a product or even just a website, every IT team has to manage some form of customer-facing software. However, while it can be tempting to focus all the attention on the platforms that bring in the bacon, it’s equally important for IT teams to remember their internal customers; the colleagues that rely on IT to do their jobs.

In this week’s episode, we learn about some of the challenges of managing the internal IT of VMware, one of the industry’s largest companies. We’re joined by global CIO Jason Conyard to discuss how VMware approaches internal tooling, why the IT team doesn’t always use VMware products, and the role that smell-o-vision plays in the company’s VR experiments.

Highlights

“We absolutely use our own products. But my rule is always we'll use our own products when it meets a need we have and it ticks the boxes that we have, and not before. And I think that's important and critical feedback for the product team because it forces an honest conversation.”

“I don't think of myself as being distinct and separate from the other technologies that are used in other parts of the company. I think of my role as being the custodian for the whole company when it comes to technology. So I understand how some teams may say oh, that something is shadow IT, because it is technology selected or managed outside of the IT department. But I still see that as my responsibility.”

Footnotes

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