Today, I am pleased to announce that Socialcast has been acquired by VMware.

Going forward, I am excited for the accelerant that VMware will provide to the product. VMware shares my vision of changing the way that people work, and we are completely aligned on Socialcast’s future direction.

Several years ago, I founded Socialcast to pursue my passion of building better ways for people to work together. At any early age I was fortunate to work in a fairly large global corporate environment where I witnessed how effective and efficient communication are critical to the success of an organization. But, in the last few years, the world has begun to drastically change; the last couple of decades have seen corporate IT focus on implementing technology and applications that create systems of records such as CRM and ERP. These systems are imperative for business operation. However, in today’s highly dynamic knowledge economy, people are a company’s most important and most challenging resource. The leading companies of tomorrow are already hard at work deploying platforms like Socialcast giving knowledge workers new tools and capabilities in order to stay competitive. I saw this pain point and wanted to make a change, and from that desire, Socialcast was born.

Startups are a journey – a journey that is more of a marathon than a sprint. Along the way I owe deep thanks to many people who have guided myself and the company to the success it enjoys today.

Building Socialcast and making my vision a reality was the work of an incredibly dedicated group of people. There is no way this would have been accomplished without their tireless effort and many late night development sessions. The team at Socialcast is truly unique. They are by far the best people that I have ever worked with. From the very early team that worked long hours in a tiny bedroom at my house in Orange County, to the group that packed up their lives and moved to San Francisco, and to today’s team that is the fabric of our culture and success – you are all a part of the success that is Socialcast.

Each day our customers have surprised us with stories of how social software and Socialcast have improved outcomes at their companies. I would like to thank all of our current customers who have believed in our vision and entrusted a small startup with providing new capabilities to their employees. I look forward to continuing our journey together, helping you shape the future of your organizations.

The silent heroes of the startup world are the families of founders and employees. Often they make incredible sacrifices in order to support the dream of their spouse or family member. Their sacrifice is rarely publically acknowledged or rewarded, but it is truly their patience and understanding that enables founders like myself to attempt to reshape the world with our visions. I would like to thank all of the families of Socialcast employees who have had to deal with late nights, crunch periods, and the general insanity that comes with working at a startup.

Of course, there are many others that I want to thank – too many to list here. But there are a few key people and groups that have helped shape Socialcast.

True Ventures – if there’s any VC in the valley that honestly believes in and invests in its entrepreneurs, it’s True. You have all been amazing partners and mentors. You believed in me as an entrepreneur and my vision from the start, and I thank you for all of the guidance and support. For any founder out there looking for funding, talk to True. They’re one of the good ones.

Although I was a single founder, lurking in the background there has been one person consistently who has also been at the helm of making Socialcast continually successfully, my wife, Carrie. She joined the company right after it was founded and has proved to be an irreplaceable force focusing on building relationships with customers and spreading the mission of Socialcast. Tirelessly working late into the night almost every day for the past couple of years, undoubtedly, without her help and continual support, Socialcast would not be where it is today.

I would also like to give deep thanks to Om Malik. He has been a strong believer in my vision of the future of work. After reading one of Om’s famous pieces in Business 2.0, I reached out to him to see if we could meet. Om and I then met at a Starbucks in San Francisco where we planned to chat for 30 minutes. We ended up spending more than 6 hours together trading stories of how we could shape the future. A few months later, Socialcast became Om’s first investment. Through the process, Om has invaluable to me not only as a Board Member but also as a friend. Thank you for your unwavering support and inspiration.

Owen Van Natta – You’ve given me perspective on how to navigate the ins and outs of being an entrepreneur. Thank you for your candid advice and support on the tough questions.

All of our Socialcast Investors – to the family members who jumped at the chance to invest early on and the quiet angels that believed in the vision, thank you for both the financial and business value that you brought to the company. Business and family don’t typically mix, but you made the blending of my two worlds painless. To Menlo Ventures, we appreciate your investment as the leader of our Series B round last year.

Socialcast Advisors – Poojitha Preena, Bhanu Sharma, Ryan Freitas, and the countless others who debated the pros and cons of features, investments and more with me – thanks for the constant brain-picking and partnership that you brought to our company. You guys are awesome and I hope to work with you again down the road on your own entrepreneurial endeavors.

I would also like to thank the team who made this marriage possible. Mike Marquez at CODE> Advisors was invaluable as was Rob Dang at Fortis GC (our general counsel since the beginning) and Richard Kline, Craig Schmitz, and Damien Weiss at Goodwin Procter. You guys helped make this happen and we are all appreciative.

TechCrunch (Michael, Leena, and Alexia) – You guys were always willing to write up a post on our latest and greatest update – when you wrote, we saw results. Thanks for keeping us out there to your audience.

And finally, to VMware – Paul Maritz, Richard McAniff, Brian Byun, Javier Soltero, and the rest of the VMware team – thank you for believing in our vision. I am thrilled to build the next part of our vision alongside you and your team.

I’m excited for the future of Socialcast and VMware. Stay tuned for more updates and announcements from the team in the coming months!