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I'm finally fully readjusted and back on schedule after VMworld and a bit of follow-up travel so can get some updates out about some cool things that have come up recently. First and foremost, Cannes, France was amazing. VMware (Richard Garsthagen ) picked an awesome location for the event. My first night was capped by the Vizioncore party where I got the chance to meet up with a lot of partners that I have come to know over the last few years.
I'm not quite sure exactly where the event was, as I had already gone through a few bottles of wine with some accomplices prior to being shoved on a bus by the bossman (who may or may not have been one of said accomplices). As you can see from my camera that is actually pretty crappy in dark settings, the venue was amazing. The party overall was a blast.
 
Overall, the VMware portion of the event was disappointing. This is old news to anyone who reads some of the blogs that are far more popular than mine, but I find it ironic that VMware can stand on stage and claim to be an innovation company (not a virtualization platform company), and then proceed to tell us about virtual appliances...for the third year in a row. To be fair, I've hit my saturation point in what VMware is and has been marketing, so I may be harsher than most people in that regard.
As far as booth duty goes, it was fantastic. Between showing off the new vCharter Pro offering from Vizioncore and Quest, and trying to stop people from stealing the copies of the VI3 book from the booth we had a ton of traffic. I'm trying to get the final approval from Quest, but I should be able to show some screenshots in a seperate post that I will clearly flag as marketing. We've got all patents and copyrights squared away so I'm happy to let our camera-happy competitors take pictures and screenshots away so they can copy us (again).
As a side note, when I was stuck in Belgium for about 9 hours due to flight cancellations and delays I got to explore quite a bit of the Brussells airport. I have a simple question for all of my Belgium audience. What is the significance of the child peeing? As an American, I natrually find this strange and it makes me unwilling to want a Coke.
Readers have left 4 comments. No.1 VMworld 2008 Europe disappointment
I've heard a few other harsh reviews also. VMware will need to step up their game so that they don't get trampled by Microsoft, Citrix, Oracle, etc. As a (losing) shareholder of VMware, I'm becoming mildly concerned. No.2 VMware doesn't have a lot of time left...
to wake up and smell the coffee.
Overpriced, overhyped...
Soon the only reasons to buy VMware will be: 1) it runs on old x86 hardware (Parallels Server will do this too); 2) it has the Shavlik stuff in the Enterprise version (which most SMBs can do just as well with WSUS); 3) one's company is already using it.
Frankly, VMware looks at the world through rose-colored glasses.
:) tom No.3 Little man pee
Manneken Pis (Dutch for little man pee) is a Brussels landmark. It is a small bronze fountain sculpture depicting a naked little boy urinating into the fountain's basin. There are several legends behind this statue, but the most famous is the one about Duke Godfrey II of Leuven. In 1142, the troops of this two-year-old lord were battling against the troops of the Berthouts, the lords of Grimbergen, in Ransbeke (now Neder-over-Heembeek). The troops put the infant lord in a basket and hung it in a tree, to encourage them. From there, he urinated on the troops of the Berthouts, who eventually lost the battle. Another legend goes like this: In the 14th century, Brussels was under siege by a foreign power. The city had held their ground for quite some time. The attackers had thought of a plan to place explosive charges at the city walls. A little boy named Juliaanske from Brussels happened to be spying on them as they were preparing. He urinated on the burning fuse and thus saved the city. No.4 Thank You Eric
Thank you for the cultural lesson Eric. I made the common "American" mistake of not understanding something after about 5 minutes on Google, and errantly decided that it didn't make sense. I apologize for any Belgians I may have offended with my poor comment. I'll happily share a Duvel with anyone I unintentionally offended. |
