VMworld 2009

 As always, this is one of the high energy user group meetings, with 12,000 attendees this year, not quite matching last year's attendance, but not showing the drops of other big shows. There were lots of free goodies from the exhibitors and even some scantily dressed show babes. The underlying business proposition was less clear: a lot of the vendors seemed to be selling features that VMware was strongly hinting were coming in future releases (hope springs eternal). The non-aligned parties were a visible part of the event, not quite up to RSA standards but clearly heading that way. Microsoft was visibly absent. We're told that at the MS Partner Meeting earlier in the summer nasty things were said by Microsoft about partners playing with VMware and the potential consequences if you did, and this was the quid pro quo. VMware clearly isn't ignoring Microsoft anymore. A lot of the new management team has been hired out of the software industry and its top leadership combined has nearly 50 years of Microsoft experience — CEO Paul Moritz (14 years at Microsoft), COO Todd Nielsen (12 years at Microsoft) came from Borland most recently, as did CMO Rick Jackson; CDO Richard McAniff (directly from 21 years at Microsoft).