Nutanix makes its customers happy. “HCI is the underlying technology,” says CEO Rajiv Ramaswami, “but the focus is on the hybrid cloud software platform.” With this, Nutanix wants to engage and retain its customers in a service model, which Ramaswami says is quite successful.

“For more than seven years, during the Nutanix transformation, we have had a Net Promoter Score of over 90,” smiles Rajiv Ramaswami. Since 2020 he has been at the helm of the company, which he believes is at the beginning of an interesting journey. “Once customers sign up with Nutanix and actually use our solutions, they generally remain customers.”

We meet Ramaswami at the Nutanix office in Hoofddorp, The Netherlands. Despite the rural setting, the nearby Schiphol Airport gives the office an international appeal. Through the window of the conference room on the fourteenth floor, we see planes taking off and landing at eye level. The proximity to Schiphol is a plus point for Ramaswami: He temporarily swapped the headquarters in San Jose for Hoofddorp in order to speak to customers, partners and employees on site.

employees, partners and customers

“Employees make the success,” says Ramaswami. “My job is to convey a vision and create an environment in which people can innovate.” In the Netherlands he will keep his finger on the pulse. The search for this staff is actually less complex than it was just under a year ago. “Talent is everywhere these days. A lot of big tech companies let a lot of people go. This allows us to attract top-class talent.”

In addition to the employees, the partners are also very important. “Our sales are exclusively via partners”, states the CEO. “We hope that they will contribute to our growth. Partners are allowed to be more autonomous and encourage adoption. They are an integral part of our strategy.”

Finally, there are the customers that Ramaswami wants to talk to. This has to be more than ever. Because Nutanix has developed from a more traditional hardware seller to a software-as-a-service provider in recent years. “As a result, our success is much more closely linked to that of our customers. We need to help them use our solutions properly. When they are happy, we grow with them.”

Don’t say HCI specialist

Ramaswami’s practical approach speaks volumes, but what does it actually mean? First of all, Nutanix is ​​no longer an HCI provider. “Nutanix delivers a hybrid multicloud software platform,” he clarifies. “HCI is the underlying technology, but that shouldn’t keep a customer up at night.”

Today, Nutanix is ​​no longer an HCI provider.

Rajiv Ramaswami, Nutanix CEO

Today, Nutanix sells a hybrid multicloud platform that enables organizations to run all of their workloads in one environment. “We want to be completely cloud-agnostic,” stresses Ramaswami. “And our same environment runs on-site too.”

Simplicity in a complex environment

The idea behind the whole plan: to offer businesses simplicity and flexibility. “When companies first moved to the cloud, there was still a three-tier model with separate processing power, storage and network,” recalls Ramaswami. “Those silos were eventually eliminated. Businesses today are realizing that consolidating everything in one cloud is undesirable, necessary, and sometimes even impossible.”

“The result is a hybrid multi-cloud environment in which different private and public cloud environments are used side by side. However, there is no synergy between them here either. That’s how silos came back.” Nutanix’s mission is to tear down those silos.

Four trumps

Unity in leadership is important for this. A dashboard for the entire IT environment is a must. We hear this story of simplicity more and more often, including among the hyperscalers themselves. However, Ramaswami is convinced that Nutanix can differentiate itself well and that across four pillars.

• “First and foremost, we make things simply. We’ve been doing that ever since we sold HCI. Simplicity is key. For example, we are looking at ways to enable one-click software upgrades,” he explains.
• “Then we offer flexibility And freedom of choice.” Ramaswami refers, for example, to the choice of cloud provider, but also of the hypervisor. You don’t have to sign up for the Nutanix AHV hypervisor yourself, you can get started with Hyper-V or vSphere.
• “Third place is ours focus on the customer. Our retention rate is consistently high because we work with our customers,” said Ramaswami. This is where the Net Promoter Score of over 90 comes into play again. With the SaaS model, Nutanix recognizes the importance of this customer experience.
• Finally played technology an important role. “Computers have become a commodity,” notes Ramaswami. “We increase our added value by offering customers convenience and the opportunity to work flexibly with their data.”

Ramaswami doesn’t think the rivals can offer the same. “A cloud provider that wants to create unity continues to focus on its own cloud,” he says.

And what about VMware? Ramaswami was the COO at the helm of VMware’s cloud business in a past life, and the transition to Nutanix was not without its legal challenges. “VMware shares our vision but comes from the computing side,” he says. “Our focus is more on simplicity and the fact that you can run the exact same stack on any cloud and on-premises, with licenses that are fully portable.

Project Becon

When companies choose the Nutanix platform as the abstraction layer to their hybrid cloud environments, they are guarding against vendor lock-in with this or that cloud provider. Nutanix is ​​trying to do even more with Project Beacon.

“Project Beacon is our vision for the future,” explains Ramaswami. “Initially we focused on hardware for our platform. With Project Beacon, we also want to provide native cloud building blocks.”

With Project Beacon we want to provide native cloud building blocks.

Rajiv Ramaswami, Nutanix CEO

Nutanix works with hypervisors to abstract cloud-native databases. “Run applications using off-the-shelf components like Kubernetes,” explains Ramaswami. “A lock-in is common when choosing a database service from a hyperscaler. We provide databases as flexible components so that you can operate the database natively on-premises and with hyperscalers without any adjustments. In this way, you only create a complete application once and can roll it out everywhere.”

Project Beacon is already implemented in bare metal installations on AWS and Azure. Cloud-native implementation follows. “After that, we will extend compatibility to other database engines and other app components, e.g seek And cachesaid Ramaswami.

suspension postponed?

All very useful, but at the end of the day, doesn’t a company just shift its bond to Nutanix? “A fair comment,” says Ramaswami. After all, while it’s true that as a company they’re fully committed to Nutanix, they don’t think they’re tied to it. “We don’t keep anyone on our platform, licenses are also available for shorter periods,” he argues.

“We also see that customers who are using Hyper-V for the first time, for example, are switching to AHV over time, not because they have to, but because they want to.” Customer satisfaction is important to us,” jokes he.

The result of all this is a company that is ready for the future. “We’ve had a tough few years in transforming into a SaaS software provider,” admits Ramaswami. “The change from hardware provider to software specialist was not a big problem at the time. But when you move to a SaaS model, the revenue from large multi-year contracts disappears before it’s finally replaced by subscriptions.”

“It’s hampering sales and cash flow and trying investors’ patience,” he continues. “We had to go through a period like this, but now we see that we came out of it healthy and profitable on the other side.”

Ready to collapse

As Nutanix tinkers with Project Beacon, potential customers’ awareness matures. “Even though we have a hybrid multi-cloud platform, we see that most of our customers are still coming from an on-premises environment,” says Ramaswami. “The world of enterprise IT is slowly moving forward, as is the realization that hybrid multicloud comes with silos that we need to break down.” And when a company has that insight and seeks a demolition expert, Nutanix and Ramaswami are ready with the sledgehammer .