SlideRocket Launches in VMware Cloud
Four years ago almost to the day, SlideRocket founder Mitch Grasso launched SlideRocket from this blog with these words:
“This is SlideRocket Mission Control. We’re counting down to launch. SlideRocket will blow away your expectations of what can be done with web applications.”
SlideRocket Has Been Acquired by VMware
Today, we are thrilled to announce that SlideRocket has been acquired by VMware, marking a dramatic acceleration in SlideRocket’s mission to reinvent presentations and change the way businesses and individuals communicate. VMware and SlideRocket share an affinity for seizing big opportunities to reinvent how people work, and we are aligned in our vision for the future of cloud applications – it’s a future where work becomes collaborative, social, mobile, and even fun!
VMware is leading the transition to the cloud. They’re thoughtful, innovative, and incredibly supportive of SlideRocket’s vision. VMware’s groundbreaking virtualization technology has deeply influenced the way we work today and patterned the cloud infrastructure and apps of tomorrow. Their technology is used and trusted by 96% of the Fortune 1000 companies, and they’re just getting started. By joining VMware’s world-class team, world-changing technology, and unparalleled record of innovation, SlideRocket gets a very powerful boost. With this we’ll accelerate our innovation and continue on this exciting journey to improve communications and the way we work.
Reinventing Presentations
SlideRocket’s opportunity was spawned by 25 years of presentations that followed a single, predictable, and boring desktop trajectory. Audiences were subjected to static slides with 10 font bullet points, inboxes laid to waste with huge attachments, teams of people ran around confused with old versions of presentations. Communication was tough. It was a sad time.
SlideRocket and our early customers set out determined to revitalize communications, with the audacious goal to imagine again presentations for the cloud. Thanks to you, we’ve experienced tremendous growth over the last four years – we grew out of Mitch’s basement, inhabited some rather dingy digs by an underpass, to our swank new offices in the heart of San Francisco.
From Fantastic Customers Come Fantastic Presentations
You and over a quarter million other innovators have created and shared over 10 million SlideRocket presentations. International events like SXSW have standardized on SlideRocket and technology pioneers like Google have partnered with us to help launch Google Chrome Web Store and the Google Apps Marketplace.
During this journey, you’ve helped steer our product direction. You were the inspiration to build features like interactive forms and comments, HTML5 and mobile player, a set of plugins for social media, finance data, and other web content, a marketplace for media, and so much more. You have been our navigators and this success is as much a credit to you as to our internal team. After all, it’s your fantastic presentations that are the fuel for SlideRocket!
I can’t express in words how fortunate we are to have such an unbelievable team of SlideRocket employees committed to our audacious goal. The team shows up day after day with a commitment to our customers and innovation. It’s unique and special for such a great group of individuals to come together and form a company family.
So, please accept my heart felt appreciation for you, our SlideRocket customers and employees. None of this would have been possible without your support, commitment and passion! Wait till you see what’s coming next; we can’t wait to blow away your expectations once again.
My Best,
Chuck Dietrich, CEO, SlideRocket
You can try SlideRocket right now. And also get an additional perspective from Steve Herrod, VMware CTO, on the VMware executive blog.
Rob B
April 26, 2011 @ 1:21 pm
Congrats ya’ll.
Dutch
April 26, 2011 @ 1:58 pm
Congrats Bro and the whole SlideRocket Team!
Chuck Dietrich
April 26, 2011 @ 2:04 pm
Thanks everyone, we’re all pretty pumped over here!
Megan
April 26, 2011 @ 2:10 pm
Congrats to everyone at SlideRocket – way to go!!!!
Terry Fortescue
April 26, 2011 @ 2:17 pm
WOW! What great news! Congrats Chuck and team!
lance
April 26, 2011 @ 2:20 pm
onward!… they have a great team at VM. SlideRocket loyal fans are looking forward to many big things. (and your new homes in Marin)
Jeff
April 26, 2011 @ 2:46 pm
Congrats on a job well done!!!
Chuck Dietrich
April 26, 2011 @ 3:43 pm
While we’re certainly enjoying the big news, you’ll see no resting on the SlideRocket team. “Onward!” is right Lance!
Benjamin
April 27, 2011 @ 7:55 am
Congratulations, Chuck!
Shawn Kibel
April 27, 2011 @ 8:45 am
Chuck,
Is there an email address I can send a media request to? Looking to line you, or a member of your org., for an interview. We are big promoters of your product in education and would like to have you on our show.
Warmest Regards!
Heidi
April 27, 2011 @ 9:48 am
@ Shawn
Media Contact
Perrin Dent
Borders + Gratehouse for SlideRocket
perrin at bordersgratehouse dot com
(415) 963-4174
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April 28, 2011 @ 12:26 am
[...] The service enables users to create presentations and easily add such features as video, Twitter feeds, various types of charts and graphs, and embedded financial data widgets with real-time information updates, SlideRocket founder and CTO Mitch Grasso told eWEEK. [...]
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April 28, 2011 @ 12:34 am
[...] Go here to see a video on how it works. [...]
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April 28, 2011 @ 1:30 am
[...] neemt voor een onbekend bedrag cloudpresentatiedienst RockSlide over. Met de dienst kunnen gebruikers [...]
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April 28, 2011 @ 2:15 am
[...] filial de EMC Corporation, VMware, ha anunciado la absorción de SlideRocket, una empresa de apenas 25 empleados con base en San Francisco. ¿El [...]
Paul Roth
April 28, 2011 @ 7:49 pm
Recently DimDim was purchased by SalesFroce.com and as a result DimDim was no longer available even to long standing customers.
I am new to Slide Rocket and I intend to have it be a significant part of my cloud strategy which will go global in the next two years.
Should I be concerned that anything will happen with Slide Rocket like what happened with DimDim?
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April 29, 2011 @ 3:00 am
[...] Tweet In a surprise move, virtualization and cloud infrastructure specialist VMware has purchased online presentations tool SlideRocket. VMware purchased e-mail collaboration suite Zimbra earlier this year and this latest acquisition [...]
Efi
May 2, 2011 @ 11:12 am
Congratulations, Charlie & the SlideRocket family! Way to go!!
Chuck Dietrich
May 2, 2011 @ 12:04 pm
Hi Paul,
Thanks for reaching out. The SlideRocket mission to reinvent presentations remains the same. We’ll be in the same offices, with the whole team here, plus a bunch of new folks to help us deliver on our mission that much faster.
Sincerely,
Chuck
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May 6, 2011 @ 2:11 am
[...] VMWare bought Sliderocket <- I love both these solutions! [...]
Charlie Crystle
May 27, 2011 @ 11:54 am
I just used SR for the first time and really like it.
Quick tip, and maybe I’m wrong, but…
pricing model should be a lot more accessible. The all-or-basically-nothing model just seems inflexible.
But again, you know your biz. Congratulations on the sale!
Ron Pragides
June 1, 2011 @ 9:52 am
Congrats Chuck!!!
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November 30, 2011 @ 12:22 pm
Why did VMware acquire Socialcast?…
Although I was working at VMware when Socialcast was acquired, I don’t know any of the details of the deal or behind-closed-doors motivation. However, in general for VMware’s revenue growth, it’s desirable for VMware to start selling applications as…
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December 28, 2011 @ 12:17 pm
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April 9, 2012 @ 9:24 pm
[...] VMWare bought Sliderocket <- I love both these solutions! [...]
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April 20, 2012 @ 6:47 am
[...] the former CEO of online presentation tool SlideRocket, and now serves as a VP at VMWare following the company’s acquisition of his business. This “dating” process is key, according to Dietrick, because just like when [...]
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April 20, 2012 @ 7:55 am
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April 21, 2012 @ 3:02 am
[...] the former CEO of online presentation tool SlideRocket, and now serves as a VP at VMWare following the company’s acquisition of his business. This “dating” process is key, according to Dietrich, because just like when [...]
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April 21, 2012 @ 1:05 pm
[...] the former CEO of online presentation tool SlideRocket, and now serves as a VP at VMWare following the company’s acquisition of his business. This “dating” process is key, according to Dietrich, because just like when [...]
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April 22, 2012 @ 1:12 am
[...] the former CEO of online presentation tool SlideRocket, and now serves as a VP at VMWare following the company’s acquisition of his business. This “dating” process is key, according to Dietrich, because just like when [...]
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March 2, 2013 @ 8:06 pm
[...] not present to a client because my login – on any computer – took too long. (Its acquisition by VMware has done more harm than good, I feel.) Recently, I worked until midnight on a particularly complex concept slide I needed for [...]