Why is Frame spinning off from Nutanix and joining forces with Dizzion. Wait… what?!?

When we started Frame in 2012, our goal was simple: deliver the best virtual app and desktop experience, period. At the time, public cloud was still in its infancy and Desktop-as-a-Service (DaaS) didn't even exist as a category.

Fast forward to 2018: after a truly wild six years of building a company from scratch, we sold Frame to Nutanix to expand our reach and support even more infrastructure fabrics (like Nutanix AHV). As part of Nutanix, we made our product more robust and "enterprise-ready" by adding dozens of features that are essential for large customers (think mostly performance and security) and we learned how to sell to them (which isn't always easy!) In the process, we turned Belgrade into a key R&D Hub for Nutanix. Cool new technologies like Nutanix Database Services are developed there! We also utilized Frame's technology and cloud experience to spearhead the development of Nutanix Cloud Clusters (NC2), which is now the cornerstone of Nutanix's multicloud strategy.

The World Turned Upside Down

Fast forward, one more time, to 2023 and it is hard to describe the level and pace of technology change in the past 5 years. The way world works has been turned upside down. Once a novelty, DaaS became a mature industry that got tens of millions of remote workers through COVID. The competitive landscape looks very different, too. Citrix and VMware, two original VDI vendors, are undergoing significant transformations under new ownership. And although Microsoft and AWS have both created new baseline DaaS solutions (AVD and AWS Workspaces), the sheer scope of their general Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS) offerings leaves little time to focus on the particulars of DaaS, making it difficult to truly delight customers.

While I'm at customers: they are considerably more knowledgeable compared to the early 2010s. The list of things administrators and users are aware of and require has grown exponentially. Much of it can be supplied through code and the product itself, with the aid of automation and an improved user experience (and more features, of course!) However, a substantial part of the puzzle remains unsolvable without the appropriate process and people who can assemble a cohesive solution and manage parts or all of it on the customer's behalf.

New Opportunities, New Challenges

As we were entering our second decade in a maturing market serving enterprise customers, it became clear that differentiating through product innovation alone will not be enough to create a long-lasting company. For example, Microsoft and AWS both have a built-in distribution advantage (not only in the DaaS space, but that's a much broader story). Fueled by the buying frenzy during the pandemic, both of them incrementally improved their respective feature sets to the point that was good enough for most customers. That presented a problem. At Frame, we did a great job innovating, added a ton of new features and continued to ship code weekly. But it was clear that on 3 key topics we needed, as the Monty Python's would say, "Something Completely Different":

1. Sales efficiency: As anyone who has worked in a large, multi-product sales organization knows, selling complex enterprise solutions is difficult. There is a steep learning curve for new sales representatives to master the details of point solutions. And sellers will optimize for what retires their quotas fastest, which by default means core product. At the same time, focusing on larger deals results in longer and more expensive sales cycles. Despite everyone's best efforts to eliminate sales friction in the overlay sales model, we were unable to fully solve the problem (and if you are aware of any great examples of a truly efficient overlay sales model, please let me know).
2. Capturing value: ?Despite sales friction our business grew quickly, given the sheer size of Nutanix's sales organization. However, after every sales win, we faced another issue: implementation in a sophisticated environment that frequently involved dozens of tweaks or third-party integrations. At its core, Frame is a technology platform; of course we support a myriad of product integrations. But no matter how elegant and bullet-proof our code was, experience taught us to appreciate unpredictability and complexity of real-world customer environments. A misconfigured firewall here and an update to anti-virus software there humbled us again and again. As we were not set up to be more prescriptive in the implementation process, we ended up spending a lot of time playing catch up. With extreme dedication of our support, solution architecture, and engineering teams we got it right for our customers almost every time. But that came at a cost, and we'd often capture just a fraction of value we provided. In many cases the right solution was to be more prescriptive and to add a managed services layer (through both process and people). But we just couldn't drive things in that direction.
3. Focus: Perhaps the most crucial factor was that our priorities began to diverge. As Nutanix moved towards profitability at scale, it concentrated on software infrastructure and hybrid multicloud solution around it. That sucked oxygen out of the room for things that were further up the stack, like Frame. On the other hand, to truly delight our DaaS customers, we were compelled to delve deeper and deeper into the details of their environments and needs. End user computing is hard and it poses intrinsic challenges. In order to win, DaaS had to be our focus and the only thing we do.

I spent better part of the last several years laboring over how to solve for these 3 challenges. Nutanix is a great company, but it was clear that Frame wouldn't be able to thrive (or even survive) in the existing configuration.

Frame + Dizzion: DaaS OGs coming together

Which brings me to today. After 5 great years as part of the Nutanix family, we just announced a bold new direction for Frame that will significantly increase its potential once again. Through the Frame spinoff from Nutanix and merger with Dizzion, another DaaS pioneer and a leading managed DaaS provider, we are creating the world's largest independent DaaS company. In Dizzion's founders, Steve Prather and Robert Green , we found kindred spirits with common founder's mentality and commitment to learning through doing.

Together, we now deliver DaaS from more than 300 global data centers, spanning all major cloud providers and on-premises environments. The combined company, Dizzion-Frame, provides unparalleled choice and flexibility to our customers by supporting Azure, AWS, GCP, Nutanix AHV, IBM Cloud, and VMware vSphere. We also offer a variety of options, from "do-it-yourself DaaS" to "fully managed DaaS."?This addresses the three problems that were keeping me up at night: we will focus solely on DaaS; we will provide a more comprehensive range of options to our customers; and our business will be more robust and efficient. With financial backing from LLR Partners , we're positioned to continue to grow effectively and efficiently and create significant long-term value for the shareholders. You can read more about the merger here and here.

A Heartfelt Thank You!

As Frame's journey with Nutanix draws to a close, I feel a deep sense of gratitude towards Nutanix's founders and OGs Dheeraj Pandey , Sunil Potti , Sudheesh Nair , and Rajiv Mirani for partnering with us in 2018 and helping us increase Frame's reach hundredfold. I will always remember and cherish their incredible energy and founder's mentality. I extend my deepest gratitude to Mark Templeton , a mentor, an icon in the industry, and a person whose humanity outshines even his professional accomplishments.

Current Nutanix's leaders, Rajiv Ramaswami , Tarkan Maner , and Tyler Wall , provided unwavering support during the complex and challenging process of a corporate carveout, where legal complications lurk at every turn. The successful completion of the spinoff and merger would not have been possible without Ali (Omid) Mokhberi , who oversaw the process with immense skill and patience.

Although it would be impossible to name all the amazing people I've met over the past five years at Nutanix, my gratitude for friendships carved through battles goes to Larissa Schneider , Rex Manseau , David Sangster , Ben Gibson , Wendy M. Pfeiffer , Vijay Rayapati , Dave Kresse , Bala Kuchibhotla , Chris Johnson , Jim Luna , Sylvain Siou , Sammy Zoghlami , Dave Gwyn , and many others.

To our entire Frame team: "Thank You!!" for your relentless hard work and especially your patience over the last 12 months. Our amazing leaders, Nemanja Stanarevic , Ruben Spruijt , Mark Joscelyne , Yangzhi Z. , William Wong , continued to lead their teams with passion and grit. Our past leaders, Jason Holloway , David Reber , Justin Boitano , and Jared Conway, PEng , made crucial contributions to Frame (and continue to make remarkable strides at NVIDIA!)

There would be no Frame without our earliest backers, Mohsen Moazami and Salil Deshpande (both founders themselves). Nagraj Kashyap and Rashmi Gopinath (Microsoft Ventures) and George Hoyem (In-Q-Tel) played a critical role in helping Frame grow.

Finally, I would like to thank my co-founders, Carsten Puls , Ivan Vuckovic , and Darko Ilic , who are all still (remarkably) part of this journey. It has been a privilege building Frame alongside you over the last decade, and I eagerly anticipate the journey ahead. I am grateful for your friendship, your support, and your dedication to our company.?Thank you for everything!