When VMware acquired AirWatch, many people on Twitter asked me to comment on it given my tenure at VMware before I joined MobileIron around 16 months ago.
As a company policy, we do not comment on other companies M&A activities, and especially because I worked at VMware, I am not going to comment on the specifics of this deal.
What I can do is refresh my views on the EMM market, which based on the latest news in the market is clearly becoming very strategic. In August last year I wrote this post on the EMM market and 6 months later, I pretty much stand by everything I wrote in that post.
Since then, we learned a few new things about the three top leaders in the MDM magic quadrant that further validate my take on the market from a pricing, revenue and focus perspective. Here are the facts, with no commentary:
- Citrix, as per their analyst call, is in “transition“
- AirWatch was acquired and in the process they disclosed that their business in 2013 was 100 Mil with around 1600 employees and 10,000 customers, and they are projecting 75 Mil in 2014 as part of VMware.
- MobileIron 2013 Revenues was north of 100 Million with around 600 Employees and 6000+ customers
Moreover, MobileIron momentum is Accelerating as shown in a recent 451 Research, which found that more companies are likely to buy MobileIron than any other MDM vendor
We remain focussed on providing value to our 6000+ customers and building a viable long term business in the process.
I would love to see other publicly available data about this market that I may have missed. Also, where do you think this market is going to be a year from now? Let me know in the comments section below. Thanks.
Vittorio
P.S. These are my own personal opinions and not of my current employer.
There is a rumor that VMware initially tried to acquire MobileIron. Is that true?
We don’t comment on rumors and speculations
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Vittorio nice blog.
You ask: (1) “other publicly available data about this market that I may have missed”. But you don’t provide any market numbers, just estimated sales figures of other players. You also provide a link to a 2013 article that shows something like $1.1B in Americas only
You then ask:” where do you think this market is going to be a year from now? “. Who do you ask? The readers on this blog? But one of the reasons we read you, is for you to tell us. You are in this business and should know better.
Where are the people who buy $1.1B each year. Analysts estimates are elusive (so they told us in UC Berkeley Haas School of Business).
I saw,you sold 100M with 600 employees. This represents $0.16 million per employee. If an acquirer spends $1B for Mobileiron, this means the final price is $1.6M per employee.
Compare this with WhatsApp ($16B with 55 employees) this is $290M per employee, about 181x Mobileiron.
Sure, we don’t compare apple to apple here. It is just an illustration , and food for thought
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