'We're in the midst of the most disruptive, dramatic period in IT,' claims VMware CEO Pat Gelsinger

Pat Gelsinger likens shift to DEC's rise and subsequent acquisition by Compaq 25 years ago

The IT industry is in the middle of the most disruptive, dramatic period for many years, according to the CEO of virtualisation giant VMware, Pat Gelsinger.

Speaking at the launch of VMware's vCloud Hybrid Service in London yesterday, Gelsinger said that consumer-driven IT change and enterprise-driven IT change are happening at the same time, leading to an unprecedented period in IT history.

He likened it to 25 years ago when Digital Equipment Company (DEC), a major player within the technology industry, was acquired by a PC maker - something that it definitely did not foresee.

"Twenty-five years ago DEC was number two in terms of revenues, market power and employees; one of the most powerful and rising IT companies. And [co-founder] Ken Olsen made a statement saying that the PC was a toy which would have no relevance to business - nine years later DEC were bought by one of those ‘toy' companies, Compaq," Gelsinger explained.

"This just shows how big the shift can be; we see the IT industry in the middle of the shift of the client server area of computing to the mobile cloud area of computing, and we can see changes in many companies; like Nokia, BlackBerry, the likes of Dell and BMC going private and IBM selling its x86 servers," he said.

And Gelsinger believes that many of the changes we will see in the next few years will be just as dramatic.

"Every company - VMware included - wants to try to address the move to the mobile cloud," he said.

As part of that shift, VMware launched its vCloud Hybrid Service for its UK customers, and Gelsinger believes the shift to hybrid solutions is already well on the way as he states there is little to no growth in on-premise IT business.

At the launch event, Gelsinger also confirmed that VMware had completed its acquisition of enterprise mobile device management solution provider AirWatch for $1.2bn in cash, plus $364m in instalments and assumed unvested equity to AirWatch.