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Isn't this more of a consolidation? My understanding was that Pivotal was spun out of EMC and included some assets that were formerly under VMWare. Also Dell

Isn't this more of a consolidation? My understanding was that Pivotal was spun out of EMC and included some assets that were formerly under VMWare. Also Dell Technologies owns a majority stake in both of them.

geodel 7y ago
Ah this makes sense. There was this vague references in my mind that SpringSource belonged to VMware and now Pivotal is parent company for Spring. So they are all kinda together.
- markdoubleyou 7y ago
  Yeah, they're back to owing Spring again. I wonder about the future of developer-centric Pivotal products. VMWare already acquired Spring, RabbitMQ, and GemFire back in 2009/2010 and then spun them off into Pivotal. So now that they've gone and acquired them again, will they divest again and just hold on to the K8s bits? VMWare is totally geared toward selling into IT orgs and has never seemed interested in dealing with developers.
  - geodel 7y ago
    I maybe wrong and many will vehemently disagree here. But I feel this whole Spring Boot thing and other dozens of Spring products are going to collapse like Java EE business for many other vendors. From what I am seeing at my workplace this whole meta framework/API things that they promote is leading to atrocious application development.
    - ellius 7y ago
      Can you elaborate? I work on a Spring Boot application and so far we're all pretty happy with it. Obviously I'm one data point, so I'd like to hear more about what you're seeing.
      - geodel 7y ago
        Kinda tricky to explain. It like 1 line expression becomes a method what could be method becomes a whole class. What could reasonably be a class is a whole package. So this whole application I am looking at is about 10 KLOC in 100 Java source files arranged in 15 or so packages along with 100s of jars buried somewhere in maven repo. To compare other application which I wrote in straightforward manner is about 20 Java files in 2-3 packages in total 4 KLOC and 15 external jar files. And my application 4-5 functions from business POV as compared to 2 functions in Spring boot application. So to me it is more about some cobbled app as opposed to engineered solution which I hope to deliver. Mind you this is all my opinion as management is doubling down on Spring boot and mandate from very top is to convert all Java app in Spring boot based services.
        james-mcelwain 7y ago
        I don't want to sound like a Spring booster, since there are plenty of criticisms of enterprise Java development that I agree with, but there's nothing intrinsic to Spring that dictates whether your business logic is spread amongst 100 files or 20. Dependency bloat can be a concern, but part of the reason for those dependencies is to reduce bloat in source code via auto-configuration.
        brown9-2 7y ago
        Its possible to write bad code with or without any framework.
        BigJono 7y ago
        Yeah and you can drive dangerously with or without traffic lights. That doesn't mean traffic lights turning green in both directions at once isn't a disaster.
        modoc 7y ago
        No idea why that is. I've been actually amazed at how much code I DON'T have to write using Spring Boot. I can focus purely on features/business logic. its great.
    - zmmmmm 7y ago
      The Java ecosystem is in an interesting place at the moment because it seems to me the penny has finally dropped and they are starting to prioritize footprint and startup time - probably becuase it's clear that you can't run a huge honking app server in a lambda service or even a VM that isn't horrifically expensive to rent, but the whole industry is moving towards that. So now you have things like Micronaut that start up in milliseconds and GraalVM suddenly getting taken seriously etc. And (for example) with Micronaut you pretty much have all the advantages of Spring Boot but about 6 lines of Groovy gets you a perfectly configured REST style API end point that starts up in hundreds of milliseconds. So it's going to be very interesting whether this "pivot" of the Java ecosystem works, and where that lands all the traditional Java vendors ....
      - jacques_chester 7y ago
        Spring-based software launches in hundreds or even tens of milliseconds if you've precompiled on Graal. The Spring team have been working closely with Graal folks to remove roadblocks. Disclosure: I work for Pivotal, though not on Spring.
    - matwood 7y ago
      Spring boot + jOOQ + modern java is probably one of the easiest ways to build java services right now. Spring has done a good job at mostly just getting out of the way. Nothing I've seen with spring boot would have lead someone to write bad code any more than using guice.
raincom 7y ago
Yeah, Redhat with their openshift vs VMware with heptio/pcf.
downrightmike 7y ago
Dell owns VMWare, and it could be seen as the only public part of Dell computers, so that's why they are using it to backdoor into the market.
- samstave 7y ago
  Would you classify this as a new version of a reverse merger?
- uiri 7y ago
  EMC, then already a public company, acquired VMware in 2004. EMC took VMware public in 2007 when it sold 15% of its stake in an IPO. EMC acquired Pivotal Labs in 2012. Months later, VMware and EMC each spin out a division, which included Pivotal Labs from EMC, as a new private company called Pivotal Software. Dell announced its acquisition of EMC in 2015 which completed about 11 months later, in 2016. EMC shareholders each receive fractional shares of a publicly trading tracking stock representing Dell-EMC's interest in VMware in addition to cash for the non-VMware parts of EMC. In December 2018, Dell went public by buying back its interest in VMware from the shareholders of the tracking stock. So what you said about VMware being the only public part of Dell computers was true, up until the end of last year. Dell as a whole has been a publicly traded company for nearly 8 months now.
jacques_chester 7y ago
Pivotal was spun out of EMC and VMware. From EMC came Pivotal Labs, Greenplum and I think GemFire. From VMware came Spring and Cloud Foundry. Not sure which one RabbitMQ came from. Disclosure: I work for Pivotal.
- brikelly 7y ago
  RabbitMQ was its own startup for a number of years (I think called "Rabbit Technologies") before it got the attention of the SpringSource/VMWare crew.
- epsilon_greedy 7y ago
  GemFire came from VMware. Spring purchased[1] GemStone (which owned gemfire) while they were a division of VMware. RabbitMQ also came from VMware by way of Spring[2]. [1] https://spring.io/blog/2010/05/06/springsource-to-acquire-gemstone-data-management https://spring.io/blog/2010/05/06/springsource-to-acquire-ge... [2] https://web.archive.org/web/20100418132113/http://www.rabbitmq.com/news.html https://web.archive.org/web/20100418132113/http://www.rabbit...
  - jacques_chester 7y ago
    I didn't know that! An interesting history.
- bloomburger 7y ago
  How disruptive have the ownership changes been over the last few years? From going public now back to private? ANY thoughts on the strategic value if PVTL under the VMware umbrella? Already close partners will the acquisition really make any difference?

geodel 7y ago

Ah this makes sense. There was this vague references in my mind that SpringSource belonged to VMware and now Pivotal is parent company for Spring. So they are all kinda together.

markdoubleyou 7y ago
Yeah, they're back to owing Spring again. I wonder about the future of developer-centric Pivotal products. VMWare already acquired Spring, RabbitMQ, and GemFire back in 2009/2010 and then spun them off into Pivotal. So now that they've gone and acquired them again, will they divest again and just hold on to the K8s bits? VMWare is totally geared toward selling into IT orgs and has never seemed interested in dealing with developers.
- geodel 7y ago
  I maybe wrong and many will vehemently disagree here. But I feel this whole Spring Boot thing and other dozens of Spring products are going to collapse like Java EE business for many other vendors. From what I am seeing at my workplace this whole meta framework/API things that they promote is leading to atrocious application development.
  - ellius 7y ago
    Can you elaborate? I work on a Spring Boot application and so far we're all pretty happy with it. Obviously I'm one data point, so I'd like to hear more about what you're seeing.
    - geodel 7y ago
      Kinda tricky to explain. It like 1 line expression becomes a method what could be method becomes a whole class. What could reasonably be a class is a whole package. So this whole application I am looking at is about 10 KLOC in 100 Java source files arranged in 15 or so packages along with 100s of jars buried somewhere in maven repo. To compare other application which I wrote in straightforward manner is about 20 Java files in 2-3 packages in total 4 KLOC and 15 external jar files. And my application 4-5 functions from business POV as compared to 2 functions in Spring boot application. So to me it is more about some cobbled app as opposed to engineered solution which I hope to deliver. Mind you this is all my opinion as management is doubling down on Spring boot and mandate from very top is to convert all Java app in Spring boot based services.
      - james-mcelwain 7y ago
        I don't want to sound like a Spring booster, since there are plenty of criticisms of enterprise Java development that I agree with, but there's nothing intrinsic to Spring that dictates whether your business logic is spread amongst 100 files or 20. Dependency bloat can be a concern, but part of the reason for those dependencies is to reduce bloat in source code via auto-configuration.
      - brown9-2 7y ago
        Its possible to write bad code with or without any framework.
        BigJono 7y ago
        Yeah and you can drive dangerously with or without traffic lights. That doesn't mean traffic lights turning green in both directions at once isn't a disaster.
      - modoc 7y ago
        No idea why that is. I've been actually amazed at how much code I DON'T have to write using Spring Boot. I can focus purely on features/business logic. its great.
  - zmmmmm 7y ago
    The Java ecosystem is in an interesting place at the moment because it seems to me the penny has finally dropped and they are starting to prioritize footprint and startup time - probably becuase it's clear that you can't run a huge honking app server in a lambda service or even a VM that isn't horrifically expensive to rent, but the whole industry is moving towards that. So now you have things like Micronaut that start up in milliseconds and GraalVM suddenly getting taken seriously etc. And (for example) with Micronaut you pretty much have all the advantages of Spring Boot but about 6 lines of Groovy gets you a perfectly configured REST style API end point that starts up in hundreds of milliseconds. So it's going to be very interesting whether this "pivot" of the Java ecosystem works, and where that lands all the traditional Java vendors ....
    - jacques_chester 7y ago
      Spring-based software launches in hundreds or even tens of milliseconds if you've precompiled on Graal. The Spring team have been working closely with Graal folks to remove roadblocks. Disclosure: I work for Pivotal, though not on Spring.
  - matwood 7y ago
    Spring boot + jOOQ + modern java is probably one of the easiest ways to build java services right now. Spring has done a good job at mostly just getting out of the way. Nothing I've seen with spring boot would have lead someone to write bad code any more than using guice.

raincom 7y ago

Yeah, Redhat with their openshift vs VMware with heptio/pcf.

downrightmike 7y ago

Dell owns VMWare, and it could be seen as the only public part of Dell computers, so that's why they are using it to backdoor into the market.

samstave 7y ago
Would you classify this as a new version of a reverse merger?
uiri 7y ago
EMC, then already a public company, acquired VMware in 2004. EMC took VMware public in 2007 when it sold 15% of its stake in an IPO. EMC acquired Pivotal Labs in 2012. Months later, VMware and EMC each spin out a division, which included Pivotal Labs from EMC, as a new private company called Pivotal Software. Dell announced its acquisition of EMC in 2015 which completed about 11 months later, in 2016. EMC shareholders each receive fractional shares of a publicly trading tracking stock representing Dell-EMC's interest in VMware in addition to cash for the non-VMware parts of EMC. In December 2018, Dell went public by buying back its interest in VMware from the shareholders of the tracking stock. So what you said about VMware being the only public part of Dell computers was true, up until the end of last year. Dell as a whole has been a publicly traded company for nearly 8 months now.

jacques_chester 7y ago

Pivotal was spun out of EMC and VMware. From EMC came Pivotal Labs, Greenplum and I think GemFire. From VMware came Spring and Cloud Foundry. Not sure which one RabbitMQ came from. Disclosure: I work for Pivotal.

brikelly 7y ago
RabbitMQ was its own startup for a number of years (I think called "Rabbit Technologies") before it got the attention of the SpringSource/VMWare crew.
epsilon_greedy 7y ago
GemFire came from VMware. Spring purchased[1] GemStone (which owned gemfire) while they were a division of VMware. RabbitMQ also came from VMware by way of Spring[2]. [1] https://spring.io/blog/2010/05/06/springsource-to-acquire-gemstone-data-management https://spring.io/blog/2010/05/06/springsource-to-acquire-ge... [2] https://web.archive.org/web/20100418132113/http://www.rabbitmq.com/news.html https://web.archive.org/web/20100418132113/http://www.rabbit...
- jacques_chester 7y ago
  I didn't know that! An interesting history.
bloomburger 7y ago
How disruptive have the ownership changes been over the last few years? From going public now back to private? ANY thoughts on the strategic value if PVTL under the VMware umbrella? Already close partners will the acquisition really make any difference?