Every category where a model named VMware for a mid-market B2B company. Share is first choices across the direct, paraphrase, budget and scale prompts; rank is within every product named in that category.

Category	Function	Share	Rank	Negative rate	Labels	Quadrant	Since September 2026
Virtual desktops	IT operations and endpoint	0%	50 of 81	25%	8	under 10 labels · led by Azure Virtual Desktop at 22%
Microsegmentation	Network and edge	0%	90 of 94	100%	1	under 10 labels · led by ColorTokens Xshield at 25%
Zero trust network access	Network and edge	0%	52 of 66	0%	1	under 10 labels · led by Twingate at 39%	newNew since September 2026: not ranked then, 0% now.

Movement

This is the first edition on this tier, so no move can be computed for VMware yet. From the next edition this section shows, per buyer segment and per category, whether its share moved by more than the measured noise floor.

By model

How each model treated VMware across every prompt where it was named for a mid-market B2B company. Fourteen models, six prompts per category.

ShowHide

Model	Mention	Negative	Labels
Claude Haiku 4.5	0	0	0
GPT-5.4 mini	1	0	1
Gemini 3.5 Flash	0	0	0
Perplexity Sonar	1	1	2
Grok 4.20	1	0	1
Mistral Small	0	0	0
DeepSeek V4 Flash	0	0	0
Llama 4 Maverick	1	0	1
Qwen 3.7 Flash	1	1	2
Kimi K2	1	0	1
GLM 4.7 FlashX	0	1	1
MiniMax M2.5	0	0	0
GPT-6 Luna	0	0	0
Muse Glimmer 30B	1	0	1

By framing

Which of the six questions produced the naming. By model says how often; this says asked what. The first-choice count on the right carries the marks of the models that produced it.

FramingLabels by classFirst choices

Direct2 labelsNone

Paraphrase2 labelsNone

Comparative7 labels1not counted in share

Budget-constrained3 labelsNone

Scale-constrained4 labelsNone

Negative6 labelsNone

First choiceAlternativeMentionNegative24 labels in all, every segment counted; 0 of the 1 first choices count toward share, since the comparative and negative framings do not. The bar is one segment per label class, to scale within the framing.

What the models said for it

Verbatim evidence the judge attached to positive labels.

No positive label carried a quote.

And against it

Verbatim evidence attached to negative labels. A warning on a product with few labels is a warning; on a product with many, it is one voice among them.

“If the platform you choose is built on a hypervisor (like VMware or Hyper-V) that is not frequently patched, your entire environment is at risk.” GLM 4.7 FlashX · Virtual desktops · negative prompt · soft negative

“be cautious if you need flexible licensing, because the result notes it is BYOL only” Perplexity Sonar · Virtual desktops · negative prompt · soft negative

“Can be expensive; complex licensing ("lock-in").” Qwen 3.7 Flash · Microsegmentation · scale prompt · soft negative

Named alongside

The products named in the same answers as VMware, over the 24 answers that named it. Took the first choice instead counts the answers where the other product was the first choice and VMware was named but was not.

ShowHide

ProductSame answerTook the first choice insteadHead to head

Citrix DaaS10 of 240Not among the top eight

Azure Virtual Desktop9 of 241Not among the top eight

Windows 3657 of 243Not among the top eight

Omnissa Horizon6 of 240Not among the top eight

Amazon WorkSpaces5 of 240Not among the top eight

Nerdio Manager3 of 241Not among the top eight

Microsoft Azure Virtual Desktop3 of 240Not among the top eight

V2 Cloud3 of 240Not among the top eight

Microsoft Intune2 of 241Not among the top eight

Zscaler Private Access2 of 241Not among the top eight

A head-to-head page exists where both products are among a category's top eight. The other rows are the same fact without a page behind them, so they link to the product instead.

What carried it into the answer

The sites and pages cited by the answers that named VMware. A fact about retrieval, not a lever on the model.

Citations exist only for the models that return a source list, five of the fourteen in this edition, so these counts come from 21 of the 24 answers that named VMware and are not a share of its labels.

Domains cited

venn.com9

getnerdio.com7

techtarget.com6

ironorbit.com5

learn.microsoft.com5

apporto.com4

apps4rent.com4

g2.com4

gartner.com4

geekflare.com4

Fifty-two of the fifty-two domain citations in answers naming VMware came from somebody else's page.

Pages cited

venn.com/learn/vdi/vdi-solutions5

geekflare.com/guides/best-virtual-desktop-solutions4

techradar.com/best/virtual-desktop-services4

apporto.com/best-vdi-solution-for-small-business3

getnerdio.com/citrix-vs-vmware-vs-avd3

getnerdio.com/virtual-desktop3

venn.com/learn/azure-virtual-desktop3

venn.com/learn/vdi/remote-virtual-desktop3

Pages are listed as the models cited them.

Search and answers

vmware.com is not in Google's top ten for any of the category's searches. In the answers, VMware takes 0% of first choices and Azure Virtual Desktop takes 22%.

ShowHide

In search

Google, US estimates

Position for “virtual desktop platform”

–

not in the top ten

Position for “virtual desktop platforms”

–

not in the top ten

Searches for its name, Google: 74,000 a month (“vmware”)
AI search demand for its name, est.: 17,842 a month
Organic visits to its site: about 352,478 a month
Searches its site ranks for: 21,229 · 3,379 in the top three
Sites linking to it: 86,242
Paid Google search: No ads found in the estimate; that does not mean it runs none

Ads on GoogleDetailLess

4 ads · 3 image, 1 text · 1 shown in the last 30 days

First shown May 2026, as VMware LLC, verified. Ads started 2025-10 to 2026-09: 4 in the year. 2 more by other advertisers linking to it.

On Google's pages: 1 2 3 4

In answers

This edition

Share of first choices

rank 50 of 81 in virtual desktops

Segment leader

22%

Azure Virtual Desktop

First choices: 0 across its categories
Named in: 24 answers
Its own site cited: in 21 of the answers that named it

Search figures are US estimates from DataForSEO, read September 28, 2026; AI search demand is its modeled, directional estimate, not a count of queries to any assistant. The answers are this edition's. Two measurements side by side: neither is read as the cause of the other.

Names read as VMware

What the judge wrote, as written, with how often. The vendor table decides that these count as VMware; a claim can dispute any of them.

VMware/Omnissa Horizon Cloud 2VMware (NSX/Secure Workload) 1VMware / Omnissa Horizon Cloud 1VMware/Omnissa Horizon 1

Follow VMware

An email the morning each edition publishes: where this product moved, where it held, and by how much against the noise floor. One address, confirmed by a click; a stop link in every email.

Already following? Everything you follow, with a stop for each.

The company

VMware is its own company.

ShowHide

In its own words

Stated by the vendor, not checked

Positioning: Cloud Computing for the Enterprise
vmware.com
For: Enterprise
vmware.com
Not stated on the pages read: Price, starting price, free plan or trial, integrations, certifications, hosting, customers

What VMware's own pages state, read October 5, 2026: vmware.com, vmware.com/products/sitemap.xml. A claimed page can correct any of them.

Is this your product?

Claim this page

Claiming is free and changes nothing in the data. A claimed page shows a verified contact who is told when each edition publishes and when VMware's standing changes by more than the noise floor; the right to propose corrections to the vendor table, meaning names the judge wrote that should or should not read as VMware, applied by version and listed in the change log; and a one-line description supplied by the vendor and marked as such.

What a new claim receivesHide what a new claim receives

A new claim receives the current edition's vendor brief for VMware by email, built from the raw record of the edition. It shows:

where VMware is named, by buyer and by framing, and which cells hold its first choices;
the claims the models make when they name it, ranked, with the strongest and the weakest quoted;
its vocabulary against the segment leader's, and the pages the models cited;
who was chosen in the answers that did not name VMware, and every reason the record gives;
a battlecard for each top rival: the head-to-head split, why they win, and the reservation quoted against them;
one page of published figures cleared to show a buyer.