Usually virtualization.info doesn’t post stories about industry events (except the major ones related to virtualization like the VMware VMworld) and for sure it doesn’t publish stories about the vendors’ presence at a specific trade show (unless it’s our own Virtualization Congress).
In this particular case we’ll make an exception: VMware just informed its partners that it will exhibit at the Oracle OpenWorld 2009.
This is not the first time that VMware shows up at that event, but it certainly is the first time that VMware and Oracle are in harsh, direct competition.
It doesn’t matter if the Oracle presence in the virtualization space is today near zero.
The experience of the CEO Paul Maritz as a former Microsoft top executive should allow VMware to not underestimate the virtualization stack that Oracle has the potential to build (Oracle VM + Virtual Iron + Sun VM Server + everything else came with the two acquisitions).
Considering this, it will be interesting to see if Oracle will confine VMware in a 10’x10’ booth, just like VMware did with Microsoft and Citrix at the last VMworld.
While VMware called the new event restrictions a standard practice for an industry trade show, pretty much everybody that visited the VMworld exhibit floor could easily recognize that the only two companies impacted were its major and most dangerous competitors.
At VMworld 2009 Red Hat exposed its upcoming KVM-based virtualization offering, which competes with VMware in almost every possible way (from server consolidation to VDI). And yet no restrictions were applied to them.
At the same time, at VMworld 2009 Symantec exposed its upcoming Endpoint Virtualization Suite, which competes with VMware in every possible way (from application virtualization to software streaming to persona management). And yet no restrictions were applied to them.
The list may go on and include at least Novell/PlateSpin, which compete with VMware on the platform, on the enterprise management (including P2V migration tools and capacity planning tools) and on the virtual data center orchestration segments.
It will be interesting to see if Oracle uses the same language VMware uses, and what kind of message will deliver with that language.
Update: By the way, Oracle has a rich agenda around virtualization for this edition of OpenWorld. And it includes many Sun technologies.