VMware says it is acquiring Wavefront, a cloud monitoring company that had previously raised $63.5M
Virtualization technology firm VMware (VMW) … Cromwell Schubarth / Silicon Valley Business Journal : VMware scoops up Palo Alto cloud analytics startup a few months after its ‘down round’ Mark Haranas / CRN : Partners: VMware Acquisition Of Wavefront Provides Channel With ‘Powerful’ Multi-Cloud App Management Mark Haranas / CRN : VMware To Boost vRealize Lineup With Acquisition Of Real-Time Data Analysis Startup Wavefront Pete Cittadini / Wavefront : CEO's Letter to Wavefront Customers, Users, Partners, and Friends Ajay Singh / VMware Cloud Management : VMware Acquires Wavefront
Context & Ripple Effects
The Wavefront deal is the first move in what becomes a sustained buying spree: within months VMware follows it with the roughly $450M purchase of software-defined networking startup VeloCloud, then application-delivery player Avi Networks in 2019, before closing the $2.7B Pivotal acquisition at the turn of 2020.
Each target fills one layer of a multi-cloud management stack — monitoring, networking, delivery, developer platform — and CRN's partner coverage frames Wavefront itself as giving the channel 'powerful' multi-cloud app management and a boost to the vRealize lineup. The Silicon Valley Business Journal notes Wavefront came cheap relative to its potential, having taken a down round just months earlier.
First-order effects
- Wavefront's real-time analytics fold into VMware's vRealize management line, giving enterprise customers and channel partners native multi-cloud application monitoring alongside their existing VMware estates.
Second-order effects
- Rival infrastructure vendors selling into the same accounts now face a VMware that bundles monitoring with virtualization rather than leaving that spend to standalone APM providers, pressuring pricing across the management tooling market.
Third-order effects
- If the pattern holds — VeloCloud, Avi Networks, Pivotal all following — VMware is converting itself from a hypervisor company into a cross-cloud control-plane vendor, competing on who owns the management layer above workloads regardless of where they run.
The trend: VMware is assembling a multi-cloud management platform through serial tuck-in acquisitions, moving value capture up the stack from virtualization to the control plane.