Virtual Computing Environment

Cisco Systems, EMC Corporation and VMware (partially owned by EMC) unveiled a joint partnership in November 2009 to develop cloud computing platforms called Vblock Infrastructure Packages. The partnership was originally called the VMware-Cisco-EMC alliance, though the name was later shortened to VCE, for the “Virtual Computing Environment coalition”. At the same EMC World trade show, Cisco and EMC introduced a joint venture named Acadia. The goal of Acadia, originally set up as a separate legal entity, was to build Vblock Infrastructure Packages in a standardized and repeatable fashion for customer data centers. Michael Capellas, who also was a board member of Cisco, was named chairman of Acadia, and its first chief executive officer (CEO) in May 2010. Sales initially encountered some confusion among customers (which often had different staffs for storage and networking, for example), and different fiscal quarter sales cycles. By the end of 2010, Capellas told analysts the venture had 65 customers, with an average system costing about $2.5 million. Acadia and the Virtual Computing Environment coalition combined into a single entity in January 2011, called VCE, the Virtual Computing Environment Company. Originally located in Silicon Valley and Dallas, Texas, an expansion was announced in March 2011 to Richardson, Texas with an investment from the Texas Enterprise Fund. In October 2011, another office opened in Marlboro, Massachusetts, close to VCE's EMC-owned manufacturing plant in Franklin, Massachusetts. In July 2012, Cisco executive Praveen Akkiraju was appointed CEO and Frank Hauck as president. It was estimated VCE had 1200 employees at the time, with undisclosed revenues but accumulated losses. Publicized customers included Babson College and the Mississippi Community College Board. The press debated if the venture should be considered a "startup company", with one headline joking "VCE = virtual cash erosion" and questioning millions of dollars of executive compensation. Others considered the arrangement to be a wise investment. Through 2012, there was a mixture of some success (with speculation of layoffs), and continued confusion due to products from competing partners such as NetApp FlexPod and Xsigo Systems. Cisco had announced its own "framework" called CloudVerse in late 2011 that was not specific to VMware. In August 2012, EMC announced a VSPEX reference architecture and partnership with Lenovo and other distributors that was seen as competing with a lower-cost option. In a November 2012 report by Gartner, VCE had a 57.4% share of integrated infrastructure systems in the second quarter of 2012 based on revenue. Gartner had previously tracked server, networking, and external controller-based storage as individual markets. VCE was named one of the “2013 Virtualization 50” by CRN Magazine. In May 2013, VCE estimated a $1 billion annual sales rate with more than 1,000 Vblock Systems sold. EMC reported an investment of $667.2 million in cash and $13.2 million in stock-based compensation to VCE, for a stake of about 58%. Cisco reported a gross investment of $457 million, for a stake of about 35%. By 2013, some of the same press writers that initially criticized VCE came to view the structure of VCE as being good business for investors. Other press highlighted VCE as a source of innovation and financial performance for investors. Total VCE for 2013 has been reported at over $1B with over a 50% year-over-year growth rate. In October 2014, EMC announced that it had acquired majority control of the VCE venture, with Cisco maintaining a 10% stake. On September 7, 2016, EMC was acquired by Dell. The Converged Platform Division of EMC is currently known as the Converged Platform and Solutions Division of Dell EMC. By February 2018, Dell EMC announced VxBlock System 1000 as a perpetual architecture and the Dell Technologies converged systems business achieved $6.51B USD of market sales during 2020 according to International Data Group. ==Products and services==