Disruption for AirWatch in EMEA as VMware merges sales teams

AirWatch business 'not as strong as we would have hoped'

VMware has admitted its EMEA Airwatch business disappointed in Q1 after it merged the sales teams, causing disruption.

In a Q1 trading update, VMware posted a five per cent annual sales boost, taking revenue to $1.59bn (£1.11bn), but net profit over the same period slumped 17 per cent to $161m.

CEO Pat Gelsinger described the figures as a "good start" to 2016, adding that "solid progress" has been made in building momentum for its cloud and growth businesses.

VMware acquired mobile management and security firm AirWatch at the start of 2014 in a bid to boot its end-user computing (EUC) business. VMware has since taken steps to open up the business to its channel partners and highlighted it as a star performer in an earnings call last year.

But on last night's call, Gelsinger admitted that some internal changes in the business put a dampener on things.

"Overall, business was strong for EUC," he said. "While in Q1 AirWatch grew and had a healthy growth rate, it was not as strong as we would have hoped. Particularly with our Workspace ONE announcement, we're increasingly selling the combined solution of AirWatch Identity and desktop as a complete solution. So we did undertake the step of merging the sales teams in Q1, which did create some disruption in the AirWatch business, particularly in EMEA."