VMware and Lumen deepen ties with joint innovation lab

• Under the expanded partnership, Lumen Technologies (NYSE:LUMN) and VMware (NYSE:VMW) will establish a joint innovation lab to accelerate building, running, and protecting connected applications across distributed infrastructure.
• The initial focus will be on co-developing solutions for Lumen's managed services portfolio in key areas that include edge computing (integrating VMW's Tanzu Basic edition with Lumen's Edge Bare Metal service), work-from-anywhere (adding VMW's SD-WAN and Workspace ONE to Lumen solutions), and security, which integrates VMW's Carbon Black Cloud Endpoint and Cloud Workload with intelligence from Lumen's threat intelligence arm, Black Lotus Labs.
• “Resilient edge computing solutions will drive the next wave of digital innovation for the enterprise and customers need the right capabilities to effectively create, deploy, and manage applications in this new environment,” says Lumen CEO Jeff Storey. “This deliberate move to invest in and accelerate our efforts with VMware will allow us to quickly bring to market software-defined solutions that address the real issues our customers face as they move applications to the edge. That is powerful.”
• VMW shares are up 0.9% pre-market. Lumen is up 0.8%.
• VMware acquired security company Carbon Black in 2019 for $2.1B.