VMware Case Study

The global destination for virtualization

“We expanded the VMworld conference from a three day event for 15,000 to a 365 day/year destination for 50,000 virtualization professionals.” Eric Nielsen, Director of Web Communities
VMware

Customer

VMware is the global leader in virtualization solutions from the desktop to the data center. With more than 120,000 customers and nearly 18,000 partners, VMware is one of the fastest-growing public software companies. Rapid change and leading edge are a given at VMware, so it's no surprise that they are providing the space for customers, partners and employees to interact in a dozen active on-line communities and that they have been utilizing Jive Software products for over 4 years.

“The thought-leadership value of having a global destination for virtualization is critical for us! This cannot be accomplished just by pushing content out, it requires enabling people to connect and carry out rich conversations with each other.” Karthik Rau, VP Corporate Marketing
VMware

Business Opportunity

Leverage untapped assets of people and knowledge

When we asked Eric Nielsen, Director of web communities at VMware, which of their many communities he wanted to talk about in this case-study, there was no hesitation and his eyes lit up as he started talking about VMworld.com.

VMworld is VMware's user conference. It pulls together over 15,000 technology experts from all over the world for an intense 3-day event with 350 sessions and 150 exhibitors. VMware realized that the conference provided an opportunity to capture an incredible amount of relevant expertise and knowledge. In 2007 they decided to create VMworld.com with these objectives:

• Create THE world-wide destination for virtualization
• Make VMworld a year-round event
• Generate additional revenue from conference content
• Reduce the cost of conference management

Solution

Jive Social Business Software: the platform to create a customized and integrated community

VMware's requirements set the bar very high and demanded a superior platform to create an engaging custom experience that was fully integrated in the core conference business processes.

“The flexibility of the platform was key to meeting the deadline of our fall conference. We went live in just three months - four weeks of design and about two months of implementation.” Sindy Braun, Sr. Director Web Marketing
VMware

Technology Selection

After evaluating 10 platforms, VMware narrowed the list down to 3 finalists, and selected Jive's Social Business Software because it provides:

• The social architecture to enable community and interaction
• A robust and scalable web 2.0 application architecture
• An open API to integrate with other systems
• The customizability to reflect VMware's own design and identity
• A robust integrated real-time chat environment
• A company (Jive Software) whose culture is open to work as a critical team supplier

“Jive gave us the customizability to match our design; the API's to integrate other applications, and the social capabilities to foster community involvement.” Tony Dunn, Sr. Web Manager
VMware

Implementation

In a short two months of implementation VMware was able to complete a broad range of critical tasks:

• Incorporated existing web presence and styles into the community
• Leveraged Jive API to integrate with other system and create custom interactions – conference registration, access to paid content, event management, community contest game.
• Backfilled content from previous conferences
• Loaded 2007 conference content

Results & Benefits

A 365 day/year event for over 50,000 virtualization professionals

As VMworld.com approaches its one year anniversary, it has established itself as the largest virtualization community in the world. VMware can now see in real time the hot areas in the virtualization community, the trends and top of mind concerns, and leverage these insights in product direction and messaging.

By extending the user conference to a year-round event, additional revenue was generated through on-line access to conference content and through virtual partner pavilions. The cost of event management was also reduced through automation and seamless integration with the community.

These results have been possible thanks to the capabilities build into the VMworld.com community application to:

• Provide virtualization information and services for business and IT professionals, academics, enthusiasts, press and analysts
• Enable the exchange of ideas, product information, and education
• Enable social networking through profiles and community capabilities
• Provide access to the incomparable assets of conference materials from 2005 on (including videos and pictures) with year-round updates
• Allow conference registrants to access the sessions they purchase at any time, even if they are not able to attend the event, and be able to ask questions and discuss issues
• Support the interaction between participants before, during and after the conference
• Run expert sessions and labs with industry leaders
• Provide community zones (Content, Partner, etc.)
• Implement engaging community challenges
• Offer services

VMworld.com Community Stats

• Over 50,000 registered users
• 35,000 active members
• 1,500 new registered users/week
• Over 35,000 page views per day
• 2,000 video views per day
• Average time on a page increased from 6 to 25 seconds
• Conference asset library of over 1,000 streaming sessions, 10 partner sections and 100's of documents
• 10 expert session library
• 100s of discussions
• All conference registrations managed in VMworld.com
• $250K saved from event management fees

“We now have the ability to bring together customers, experts, and partners in one environment that integrates events, discussions, content, and social connections.” Eric Nielsen, Director of Web Communities
VMware