After reading the Wall Street Journal Article, attending VMworld 2012 (where it was announced that Pat Gelsinger was replacing Paul Maritz), and after VMware consumes acquisition after acquisition only to wait one, two and even three years before incorporating said acquired functionality into the VMware product line (for which they acquired); I’m beginning to wonder if VMware needs to slow down on the growth and expansion and get back to what they do great! Building the best hypervisor on the planet.

Some observations with my customers: The Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI) aka VMware View “fire” seems to have been put out due to cost alone. The “java as a service” vFabric craze seems to have never left the ground. Not to mention, I’ve never seen a single Zimbra implementation. Without market penetration, those become some crazy expensive acquisitions quickly. While were at it, throw in the latest gobble-up being Nicira at a meager 1.2 billion (insert Austin Powers voice). Right there, you’ve got four acquisitions that are not playing in the mainstream market where most of my customers live. Perhaps VMware should be more diligent about incorporating acquired software into their application stack with a better sense of urgency.

That being said, all of my customers are VMware customers, all of them using either ESXi 4 or 5 for server and/or desktop virtualization to some point. Hearing that, you’d think that’s where VMware would focus its efforts. Or are they of the mindset that “those customers have already paid their bills, lets find new customers?” That, I don’t know.

What do you see in the immediate future of VMware?

Tags: cloud, cloud computing, desktop computing, ESX, esxi, virtualization, vmware