VMware has long since won the software-defined data center war with analysts estimating upwards of 80% of virtualized workloads run on the vendor's software. But can the virtualization giant also win at cloud-native applications? On the company’s third-quarter fiscal 2022 earnings call this week, VMware CEO Raghu Raghuram said the answer is yes.

“We are in an age of explosive growth with respect to applications,” Raghuram said, according to a Seeking Alpha transcript.

On-premises data center and private cloud applications “tend to invariably land on top of our platform,” Raghuram said. As VMware builds out its Kubernetes-based Tanzu portfolio, enterprise customers are starting to use Tanzu for cloud-native applications, he added.

“And then last but not the least, with the VMware Cloud offerings on the public cloud providers, we are starting to see new applications land there as well because we just recently added Kubernetes capability to the VMware cloud offerings,” Raghuram said. “So as we build those out, we expect to see [VMware] getting a good share of new applications on the public cloud as well.”

It’s tough to tell what a “good share” means, however, because VMware executives didn’t provide any concrete Tanzu or Modern App business numbers on the call.

VMware’s total third-quarter revenue hit $3.2 billion, an increase of 11% compared to a year ago, while net income grew 3% to $725 million or $1.72 per share. Combined subscription and software-as-a-service (SaaS) and license revenue grew 16% year over year to $1.5 billion.

Subscription and SaaS revenue of $820 million was up 21% compared to Q3 of fiscal 2021, and it represented 26% of total revenue for the quarter. “Our largest contributors to subscription and SaaS were VCPP, Tanzu, EUC, Carbon Black, and VMware Cloud on AWS, which saw strong double-digit year-over-year growth in revenue and ARR,” VMware CFO Zane Rowe said. But he didn’t give any specifics around Tanzu growth.

Raghuram did, however, tout a Tanzu customer win with the Department of Education for “one of America’s largest cities.” The customer is using Tanzu for application resiliency, he added.

“Leveraging VMware Tanzu, the customer now has improved ability to respond to ever-changing needs of students, their families, and faculty while protecting student information and creating an environment to accelerate their innovation and automation,” Raghuram said. “One of our new beta offerings in the space is the Tanzu Application Platform, which will make it easier and simpler for developers to drive productivity and velocity in a more secure fashion on any cloud.”

Raghuram also noted the new Tanzu Community Edition, which debuted at VMworld last month. It’s a free version of VMware’s managed Kubernetes platform that targets small-scale and pre-production environments.

And he mentioned Tanzu Mission Control Starter, a free version of VMware’s multi-cloud, multi-cluster Kubernetes management product.

“Tanzu is the future of VMware,” Ajay Patel, SVP and GM of the vendor’s modern application platform business told SDxCentral during a VMworld interview.

While this is likely true, it’s too early to tell the size and scope of that future.

BMO Capital Markets lowered VMware’s target price after the earnings call as its analysts “continue to contemplate” Tanzu adoption.

“While we think VMW can retain high-attach rates to existing workloads, including those that transition to the cloud, we have less confidence in attachment to new cloud workloads,” wrote BMO Capital Markets analyst Keith Bachman, in a research note to investors. “Hence, we remain very focused on Tanzu adoption. High adoption and Tanzu usage would suggest, or increase the likelihood of, VMW remaining relevant for new cloud workloads, whereas low adoption and usage would suggest that VMW’s relevance in the cloud will wane, in our opinion.”