Virtualization and the VMware Vision for SMBs

Part 1 – Introducing Russ Stockdale

I'm Russ Stockdale - Vice President and General Manager of Small and Midsize Business (SMB) at VMware. In my role I'm responsible for VMware's SMB solutions<http://bit.ly/KMKNaC>, product marketing and go-to-market efforts across the product lines that cater to our SMB customers.

[http://blogs.vmware.com/.a/6a00d8341c328153ef0168eb0c2c9d970c-320wi]<http://blogs.vmware.com/.a/6a00d8341c328153ef0168eb0c2c9d970c-pi>I work with the product teams across VMware to develop product strategy, positioning and the right solutions for SMBs while working closely with our sales and partner teams to make sure that we're delivering the right product experience and services to our customers.

I came to this role through my position at Mozy where I first joined as chief marketing officer and held the position of VP of Product and Program Management as well as, most recently General Manager of the business, a role I still hold today. Mozy gave me the opportunity not only to work with a number of SMB customers but to run an SMB business and see first hand the challenges that SMBs are faced with on a daily basis. I think this has given me a unique perspective in my current role delivering solutions for SMBs.



From school and throughout my career I've had a passion for solving problems with technology and making that technology accessible to the masses. I've been lucky enough to work on some pretty big projects to that effect, including making desktop OSs more user friendly with early versions of Windows and making the Internet more accessible by working on the team that delivered the first versions of Internet Explorer. This has contributed to my perspective in my current role, making enterprise-class technology and solutions accessible to customers of all sizes.

Connecting enterprise class solutions with the unique requirements of SMB customers can be a challenging task, but I have some brilliant engineers and solution strategists on my side. In addition, the sales and partner "feet on the street" that you, our customer, work with are some of the finest in the industry. We're all here to help you, take advantage of the efficiencies and possibilities that virtualization has to offer.

This task is not as simple as selling an enterprise solution to an SMB customer or making a stripped down version of an enterprise offering at a lower cost. While cost is often a factor, SMBs still need the right mix of features and functionality that cater to their unique challenges. In many cases the challenges SMB customers are faced with every day are very different from their enterprise counterparts. I go into this more in the following video<http://bit.ly/ISGDmf>.

In the coming weeks I'll elaborate on the points that I covered in this video including:

* The challenges that SMBs are faced with and how these challenges can stand in front of the goals of the business.
* The unique characteristics of SMBs and how this contributes to the complexities in the IT environments.
* The VMware vision for SMBs to overcome today's IT challenges and take full advantage of what virtualization and the cloud have to offer.

I look forward to hearing your opinions and feedback and I hope that my posts not only provide some insight into VMware solutions but also a venue for discussion.

~ Russ Stockdale

Original Post:
http://blogs.vmware.com/smb/2012/05/need-title.html