At the VMworld 2019 general session keynote, VMware, Inc. walked attendees through a series of product demonstrations to highlight how organizations can use VMware's software architecture to build, run, manage, connect and protect any app, on any cloud and any device.

"The VMware innovation engine is thriving at VMware, and we saw it in action in today's VMworld general session keynote as we demonstrated one new technology solution after another," commented Ray O'Farrell, executive vice president, VMware. "With our organic innovation, recent acquisitions and commitment to emerging technologies, we are uniquely positioned to help our customers manage any application in any cloud, with seamless access from any device."

Tuesday's VMworld general session keynote featured a number of innovations, with segments including:

• Build & Run Apps, with Velocity and Flexibility, At Scale: Provided a deeper dive with June Yang, vice president, product management and engineering, into VMware Tanzu - a portfolio of products and services that will transform the way enterprises build software on Kubernetes.
• Connect & Protect: Showcased VMware's security offerings with Marcos Hernandez, chief technologist, network and security, including VMware NSX and VMware AppDefense, and discussed the company's plans to integrate Carbon Black's cloud-native security platform into VMware security solutions, upon close of the acquisition.
• Manage in a Consistent Fashion: Highlighted innovations from across VMware's hybrid cloud portfolio with Purnima Padmanabhan, vice president, product management, that enable IT to build, run, and manage workloads on a consistent infrastructure across their data center, public cloud, or edge infrastructure of choice.
• Optimize the Employee Experience: Unveiled new capabilities of VMware Workspace ONE with Shikha Mittal, director, product management and strategy, virtual workspace, to help organizations provide employees with a seamless experience as they access work apps from anywhere.
• Looking to the Future: A review of emerging technologies with Greg Lavender, senior vice president and CTO, cloud architecture, focusing on AI, ML, hardware acceleration, cloud, edge computing, and IoT. Together with O'Farrell, the conversation also explored what a truly multi-cloud world could look like, where one could run apps and multi-cloud services without boundaries or limits.

Throughout the technology demonstrations, VMware spotlighted how organizations such as Domino's, U.S. Senate Federal Credit Union, Zuora and Delta are using VMware solutions to tackle their toughest technology challenges when developing, running, securing, and delivering applications.

CEO Pat Gelsinger announced that Ray O'Farrell, VMware's current Chief Technology Officer (CTO), will take on a new role to lead VMware's modern apps strategy and business, as well as the integration of Pivotal, once the acquisition closes.

With O'Farrell's new role, Greg Lavender, currently senior vice president and CTO, cloud architecture, has been appointed as VMware CTO. Lavender, who joined VMware in 2018, has more than 35 years of experience in software and hardware product engineering and advanced research and development in industry research labs and academia. Before joining VMware, he was managing director and CTO for cloud architecture and technology engineering at Citigroup. Prior to Citi, Lavender held engineering leadership positions at Cisco Systems and Sun Microsystems.

Also on stage, Sanjay Poonen hosted world-renowned athletes Lindsey Vonn and Steve Young to discuss their unrelenting work ethic, how they overcame obstacles, and what drives their passion.

Vonn, a recently retired Olympic gold and bronze medal-winning alpine ski racer for the U.S. Ski Team, is a New York Times best-selling author and founder of the Lindsey Vonn Foundation, established to empower young girls. Young built his fame as a record-setting professional quarterback, and is now an acclaimed motivational speaker and Founder and Chairman of the Forever Young Foundation (FYF), which is actively involved in children's charities nationwide. Both athletes made a significant impact throughout their respective sporting careers and have transitioned to focus on how to empower others to do the same.