Of Netbooks and Disney World

Netbooks are everywhere here. They are still a pretty small minority, but they're definitely visible. I can see the advantages of lugging around a tiny laptop all day at VMworld. I have a small laptop myself, but even my 13.3" screen Dell can get heavy after eight hours in the halls of Moscone Center.

Microsoft and Citrix each being confined to 10'X10' booths is utterly ridiculous. Let them compete equally, VMware! Not only are the booths ludicrous, but they're not allowed to demo Hyper-V (Microsoft) and XenServer (Citrix). What a joke. It makes VMware look bad -- and scared. Why are they afraid to let customers see what their products can do?

VMware is big on the clouds. The admins I've talked to here, less so. (More to come on this later).

I miss my Mac. I bought a very high-powered Dell laptop to replace my old PowerBook Pro, which served me faithfully for years. I've had more bluescreens in two days here than I had in three years of Apple bliss. I may soon be asking for a refund.

It's hard to believe that VMworld requires session attendees to have their badges scanned before going in. Greg Shields wrote about this recently, and he's spot on. Do away with this hideous practice, VMware, I beg you. The lines to get in sessions, because of this scanning nonsense, is appalling. It's like standing in line at a movie theater or Disney World. Is this the atmosphere VMware wants to create?

The lines to get into the hands-on labs are even worse. In a way, it's good for VMware that so many folks want to try out its stuff. But more standing in line means more grumbling, more unhappy campers.

Most of the juice at this show is around the vendors. Lots of announcements from them, mostly concerning new apps that extend the capabilities of VI/vSphere. I love the innovation of this industry. The ways they've found to use virtualization for previously un-thought-of tasks is inspiring.

Posted by Keith Ward on 09/03/2009 at 12:48 PM