The migration to multicloud and software-as-a-service (SaaS) models dominated the conversation at this year’s VMworld 2021 virtual event. And, according to VMware’s newly appointed CTO Kit Colbert, this transition is a win-win for customers and vendors alike.

Helping VMware capitalize on this trend and convert more of its expansive software portfolio to a SaaS model was just one of several topics Colbert, who replaced former CTO Greg Lavender early last month, discussed during a presentation at this week's event.

The transformation of services to SaaS models “is very good for the industry in the sense that it aligns with the incentives of vendors and with the incentives of the customer,” he said, adding that SaaS apps allow customers to deploy services in a matter of minutes at scale, or try a new feature, and they don’t have to download or install anything to do it.

“It makes that experience so much richer for them that they can see that value and realize that value so much quicker,” he added.

Those benefits aren’t limited to customers. When implemented correctly, Colbert argues that SaaS models allow vendors to build better, more competitive products. The company is already applying this logic to VMware Cloud on AWS.

“We look at every step of a customer's onboarding and measure how much time it's taking them [and] where they’re falling off,” he said. “If we see a big fall area we go and focus on it and try to fix it.”

This telemetry also allows vendors to quickly iterate, introduce new features, and improve customer experiences, he added. “What it’s about is getting better value to customers faster, while at the same time giving them a really great experience.”

Colbert calls this the “third wave” of VMware’s strategy. The first wave established VMware as a player in low-level virtualization; the second expanded the scope of those capabilities to new use cases; and now the third wave is about converting these services to a SaaS model.

“We are on our journey,” he said. “We’ve got a lot of SaaS offerings out there, but now we need to move really to the acceleration mode.”

Colbert admitted that this transition is not easy. “We understand it very well now, but it is such a fundamental mindset shift for so many folks,” he said

Making this transition more complicated for VMware is this transition isn’t happening in just one cloud, it’s happening in multiple. This introduces a number of challenges for customers and vendors, including duplicate processes and compliance workflows as well as security implications, he said.

It’s “a huge concern that there might be some sort of software supply-chain problem where hackers get in there, and that malicious code goes out, and you’re not aware of it,” he said.

While it’s possible to address this for one cloud, applying these same principles consistently across multiple clouds remains problematic, Colbert explained, adding that addressing this challenge requires building tools that allow customers to manage this complexity.

VMware isn’t, however, trying to solve this puzzle in a vacuum. In addition to reorganizing talent and hiring SaaS-focused employees, the vendor is also working with companies that have already made the transition.

Atlassian is one example. “I think they've got a great story of shrink wrapping on-prem products to SaaS products,” he said. “There are many others in the industry that we’re going out and talking with as well.”