For more than two decades, VMware has been the backbone of enterprise IT. It virtualized the data center, transformed the way infrastructure was consumed, and defined the operating model of an entire generation of CIOs and IT architects. That era mattered, and it brought incredible efficiency gains. But as much as VMware shaped the last chapter, the story of enterprise infrastructure is now moving on. And the real question for organizations is not “VMware or Nutanix?”, but the real question is: how much control are you willing to keep over your own future?

The Wrong Question

The way the conversation is often framed, Nutanix against VMware,  misses the point entirely. Customers are not trying to settle a sports rivalry. They are not interested in cheering for one logo over another. What they are really trying to figure out is whether their infrastructure strategy gives them freedom or creates dependency. It is less about choosing between two vendors and more about choosing how much autonomy they retain.

VMware is still seen as the incumbent, the technology that defined stability and became the default. Nutanix is often described as the challenger. But in reality, the battleground has shifted. It is no longer about virtualization versus hyperconvergence, but about which platform offers true adaptability in a multi-cloud world.

The VMware Era – A Breakthrough That Belongs to the Past

There is no denying VMware’s historical importance. Virtualization was a revolution. It allowed enterprises to consolidate, to scale, and to rethink how applications were deployed. For a long time, VMware was synonymous with progress.

But revolutions have life cycles. Virtualization solved yesterday’s problems, and the challenges today look very different. Enterprises now face hybrid and multi-cloud realities, sovereignty concerns, and the rise of AI workloads that stretch far beyond the boundaries of a hypervisor. VMware’s empire was built for an era where the primary challenge was infrastructure efficiency. That chapter is now closing.

The Nutanix Trajectory – From HCI to a Distributed Cloud OS

Nutanix started with hyperconverged infrastructure. That much is true but it never stopped there. Over the years, Nutanix has steadily moved towards building a distributed cloud operating system that spans on-premises data centers, public clouds, and the edge.

This evolution matters because it reframes Nutanix not as a competitor in VMware’s world, but as the shaper of a new one. Think about it. Now, it’s about who provides the freedom to run workloads wherever they make the most sense without being forced into a corner by contracts, licensing, or technical constraints.

The Cost of Inertia

For many customers, staying with VMware feels like the path of least resistance. There are sunk costs, existing skill sets, and the comfort of familiarity, but inertia comes at a price. The longer enterprises delay modernization, the more difficult and expensive it becomes to catch up later.

The Broadcom acquisition has accelerated this reality. Pricing changes, bundled contracts, and ecosystem lock-in are daily conversations in boardrooms. Dependency has become a strategic liability. What once felt like stability now feels like fragility.

Leverage Instead of Lock-In

This is where Nutanix changes the narrative. It is not simply offering an alternative hypervisor or another management tool. It is offering leverage – the ability to simplify operations while keeping doors open.

With Nutanix, customers can run workloads on-premises, in AWS, in Azure, in GCP, or across them all. They can adopt cloud-native services without abandoning existing investments. They can prepare for sovereignty requirements or AI infrastructure needs without being tied to a single roadmap dictated by a vendor’s financial strategy.

That is what leverage looks like. It gives CIOs and IT leaders negotiation power. It ensures that the infrastructure strategy is not dictated by one supplier’s pricing model, but by the customer’s own business needs.

The Next Chapter

VMware defined the last era of enterprise IT. It built the virtualization chapter that will always remain a cornerstone in IT history. But the next chapter is being written by Nutanix. Not because it “beat” VMware, but because it aligned itself with the challenges enterprises are facing today: autonomy, adaptability, and resilience.

This chapter is about who controls the terms of the game. And for organizations that want to stay in charge of their own destiny, Nutanix represents the next chapter.

When people talk about cloud computing, the conversation almost always drifts toward the hyperscalers. AWS, Azure, and Google Cloud have shaped what we consider a “cloud” today. They offer seemingly endless catalogs of services, APIs for everything, and a global footprint. So why does Nutanix call its Nutanix Cloud Platform (NCP) a private cloud, even though its catalog of IaaS and PaaS services is far more limited?

To answer that, it makes sense to go back to the roots. NIST’s SP 800-145 definition of cloud computing is still the most relevant one. According to it, five essential characteristics make something a cloud: on-demand self-service, broad network access, resource pooling, rapid elasticity, and measured service. NIST then defines four deployment models: public, private, community, and hybrid.

If you look at NCP through that lens, it ticks the boxes. It delivers on-demand infrastructure through Prism and APIs, it abstracts and pools compute and storage across nodes, it scales out quickly, and it gives you metering and reporting on consumption. A private cloud is about the deployment model and the operating characteristics, not about the length of the service catalog. And that’s why NCP rightfully positions itself as a private cloud platform.

At the same time, it would be wrong to assume that private clouds stop at virtual machines and storage. Modern platforms are extending their scope with built-in capabilities for container orchestration, making Kubernetes a first-class citizen for enterprises that want to modernize their applications without stitching together multiple toolchains. On top of that, AI workloads are no longer confined to the public cloud. Private clouds can now deliver integrated solutions for deploying, managing, and scaling AI and machine learning models, combining GPUs, data services, and lifecycle management in one place. This means organizations are not locked out of next-generation workloads simply because they run on private infrastructure.

A good example is what many European governments are facing right now. Imagine a national healthcare system wanting to explore generative AI to improve medical research or diagnostics. Regulatory pressure dictates that sensitive patient data must never leave national borders, let alone be processed in a global public cloud where data residency and sovereignty are unclear. By running AI services directly on top of their private cloud, with Kubernetes as the orchestration layer, they can experiment with new models, train them on local GPU resources, and still keep complete operational control. This setup allows them to comply with AI regulations, maintain full sovereignty, and at the same time benefit from the elasticity and speed of a modern cloud environment. It’s a model that not only protects sovereignty but also accelerates innovation. Innovation at a different pace, but it’s still innovation.

Now, here’s where my personal perspective comes in. I no longer believe that the hyperscalers’ stretch into the private domain – think AWS Outposts, Azure Local, or even dedicated models like Oracle’s Dedicated Region – represents the future of cloud. In continental Europe especially, I see these as exceptions rather than the rule. The reality now is that most organizations here are far more concerned with sovereignty, control, and independence than with consuming a hyperscaler’s entire catalog in a smaller, local flavor.

What I believe will be far more relevant is the rise of private clouds as the foundation of enterprise IT. Combined with a hybrid multi-cloud strategy, this opens the door to what I would call a sovereign hybrid multi-cloud architecture. The idea is simple: sovereign and sensitive workloads live in a private cloud that is under your control, built to allow quick migration and even a cloud-exit if needed. At the same time, non-critical workloads can live comfortably in a public cloud where an intentional lock-in may even make sense, because you benefit from the deep integration and services that hyperscalers do best.

And this is where the “exit” part becomes critical. Picture a regulator suddenly deciding that certain workloads containing citizen data cannot legally remain in a U.S.-owned public cloud. For an organization without a sovereign hybrid strategy, this could mean months of firefighting, emergency projects, and unplanned costs to migrate or even rebuild applications. But for those who have invested in a sovereign private cloud foundation, with portable workloads across virtual machines and containers, this becomes a controlled process. Data and apps can be moved back under national jurisdiction quickly (or to any other destination), without breaking services or putting compliance at risk. It turns a crisis into a manageable transition.

This two-speed model gives you the best of both worlds. Sovereignty where it matters, and scale where it helps. And it puts private cloud platforms like Nutanix NCP in a much more strategic light. They are not just a “mini AWS” or a simplified on-prem extension, but are the anchor that allows enterprises and governments to build an IT architecture with both freedom of choice and long-term resilience.

While public clouds are often seen as environments where control and sovereignty are limited, organizations can now introduce an abstraction and governance layer on top of hyperscaler infrastructure. By running workloads through this layer, whether virtual machines or containers, enterprises gain consistent security controls independent of the underlying public cloud provider, unified operations and management across private and public deployments, and workload portability that avoids deep dependency on hyperscaler-native tools. Most importantly, sovereignty is enhanced, since governance, compliance, and security frameworks remain under the organization’s control.

This architecture essentially transforms the public cloud into an extension of the sovereign environment, rather than a separate silo. It means that even when workloads reside on hyperscaler infrastructure, they can still benefit from enhanced security, governance, and operational consistency, forming the cornerstone of a true sovereign hybrid multi-cloud.

In short, the question is not whether someone like Nutanix can compete with hyperscalers on the number of services. The real question is whether organizations in Europe want to remain fully dependent on global public clouds or if they want the ability to run sovereign, portable workloads under their own control. From what I see, the latter is becoming the priority.