Archives for April 2009

Countdown to Launch

April 19, 2009 Leave a Comment

One of the great things about my job at VMware is the new technology and initiatives that I’m aware of and can participate in. The downside is that you can’t talk about them until they are officially announced. On Tuesday VMware will be making a large announcement that includes vSphere and vCloud, I’ll finally be able to start sharing my thoughts and experiences on everything that we have been working on. You can join in to the online simulcast of the announcement from VMware corporate headquarters in Palo Alto. I’ll also be posting photos (and maybe a video?) from the day…timing of which will be determined by my busy schedule this week.

Tuesday’s announcement completes the triad of announcements over the past month. First was Cisco’s Unified Computing System (UCS), their foray into the X86 based blade server computing market but designed around the virtualization and cloud computing needs of the enterprise data center. Next came EMC’s Symmetrix V-Max (Virtual Matrix Architecture), the storage solution designed to power the virtual data center with scalable inter-connected storage that can even span multiple data centers. Chad Sakac has posted a great virtualization specific overview on his blog. Finally comes Tuesday…stay tuned.

(In preperation for tomorrow’s big event, check out hte Informationweek article on Why ‘Private Cloud’ Computing is Real — And Worth Considering. I found this article to be a good overview on private cloud computing and has a few VMware teasers in it.)

Rumor: Microsoft Office Virtualization Edition

April 17, 2009 4 Comments

I heard an interesting rumor this week that Microsoft is planning on updating their licensing model in the near future for Microsoft Office to introduce a virtualization version. The way it was described to me is that if you want to migrate your physical desktops to virtual desktops and run Microsoft Office on them, you will need to purchase a special Office Virtualized Edition.

What I haven’t heard is if this will be an additional license fee for Office or not (the way it was described to me made it sound like it was an additional cost to upgrade your current office to run it on a virtualized desktop).

(Note: I’ve pinged numerous contacts familiar with Microsoft licensing and no one else has heard this…)

Since I am in discussions with a number of my clients about desktop virtualization, I’ve gotten some exposure to the ins and outs of Microsoft licensing. I know that many large enterprises have been pushing Microsoft for a per user licensing model for software applications, and this could very well be just that. Or is this a sign that Microsoft is concerned that virtual desktops could cut into their profit margins and they are taking a proactive stance to prevent that?

After all, if I have 6000 call center workers spread out around the world in three different time zones and they all need to have MS office on their desktop, today I have to pay Microsoft for 6000 Office licenses. With virtual desktops I can run 2000 virtual desktops in a data center that all my call center workers access and only have to pay for 2000 Microsoft Office licenses (as one center shuts down another center spins up and re-uses the same virtual desktop).

Microsoft isn’t going to sit by and lose all that revenue. So hearing about this doesn’t surprise me. It also won’t surprise me if Microsoft ends up charging more for the Virtualized Edition. Which leads one to wonder if this is truely a new licensing version or just a virtualization penalty? Time will tell…

Twitter & Derivative Markets Commonality

April 14, 2009 Leave a Comment

While catching up on some email today, I came across an confluence in my inbox. First, I catch the following Computerworld headline in a technology industry email newsletter:

As rumors swirl, Twitter says no rush for business model

A few email later, I run across a humor email (that I’m sure everyone has seen by now) that discusses derivative market explained for laymen. It starts off:

Heidi is the proprietor of a bar in Detroit. In order to increase sales, she decides to allow her loyal customers – most of whom are unemployed alcoholics – to drink now but pay later.

My first raction to Heidi’s business plan is ‘how acinine, she’ll never see any money by loaning drinks to alcholics.’ By now we all know the rest of the story about the derivative markets, banks kept giving Heidi loans based on her debt assets only to never see their money come back.

And now we switch over to the alcholic users of the web 2.0, where everyone can get drunk for free off of their favorite services. So, will Twitter’s VCs and Investors ever see their investement dollars turn into the lucrative cash flow that Heidi’s bankers thought they had? Or will Twitter end up with some risk manager calling in the marker and cause the fall of the micro-blogging derivative markets?

Guess Twitter needs to determine which definition of business they want applied to them:

3. a person, partnership, or corporation engaged in commerce, manufacturing, or a service; profit-seeking enterprise or concern.

or will they keep focused on features and building more mass market appeal adding more noise to the signal until they reach

11. excrement: used as a euphemism.

Round and round we go…last call, drink up!