VMworld 2010: Great Show

It’s officially over! For us, VMworld 2010 was an exciting ride.

Day one started with a bang when Network World named MokaFive BareMetal the Hottest Virtualization Product at VMworld. Even though our booth (#1736) was in the far corner of the show floor, we had a crush of traffic visit the booth to learn more about MokaFive. There was a lot of the excitement and buzz about MokaFive especially around our recent announcements on BareMetal player, our partnership with AVG and our MSP beta program. In addition to the high volume of booth traffic, we had a great set of conversations starting with The Register in the morning, Forbes in the afternoon, and a sprinkling of industry analysts throughout the day. Then there were meetings with prospects and partners that went into the wee hours of the morning. The great food and wine at Marlowe just made it even better.

The excitement continued into day two, three and four. The session on VDI TCO caught my attention. It was truly revealing and entertaining. The speaker said, “don’t bother trying to justify VDI on the basis of TCO, find alternative justifications like security etc.” Now that is what I call clean speaking. This just reinforces my conviction that the MokaFive datacenter-less (distributed) approach is the right way to go. Among other attractions, both Brian and Gabe from brianmadden.com stopped by the booth to discuss BareMetal , we had a surprise visit by our angel investor, Vinod Khosla, and Dale did a radio gig on Internet Evolution.

Net-net the predictions I made in the previous blog turned out to be nearly correct. The messaging was cloudy and VMWare killed CVP officially. But contrary to my prediction there weren't as many open source application companies. Well two out of three, ain't bad.

Purnima Padmanabhan, VP of Products & Marketing

VMworld Predictions

As I previously noted, next week’s VMworld will be MokaFive’s first showing in two years. We’re putting the finishing touches on our booth and prepping our demos. While we count down the days, I want to share some thoughts on what I predict will come out of VMworld.

1. Cloudy messaging around cloud. You don’t have to be clairvoyant to see this one. VMworld 2010 will be all about the cloud, so expect to see everyone putting out some “cloud” story—whether they have a cloud offering or not. As such, expect to sift through these myriad messages for what’s real, what’s pure marketing and what’s simply lipstick on a pig. Despite best efforts to align with the cloud story, the plain fact is that cloud is not an all or nothing model.

As an example, let’s look at desktop virtualization—which is, after all, what we know best. While server virtualization is a key component of the cloud-based delivery model, on the desktop side, the cloud discussion can take an interesting turn. Too often, the most obvious approach has been to take a desktop, virtualize it and then put it in the cloud. But, keeping in mind that cloud is not “all or nothing,” how about just centralizing the management in the cloud, but still keeping the desktop with you.

2. VMware goes back to basics. Based on recent earnings and (non) developments and news from VMware, I anticipate that it will go back to its comfort zone and core competency: the server. Like all vendors, VMware fell prey to the trends—and why not, since they have the revenue and clout. But the reality is, VMware’s business is the data center. They will refocus (or reaffirm) their server play, including server-side desktop virtualization (VDI).

3. Open source ecosystem. Expect a lot of smaller open source type plays to jockey for a position to fill into VMware ecosystem either around open source management or open source application development. They’ve seen VMware move into open source software and open source tools, so they will be want to a part to play in this.

That’s it for my predictions. The last food for thought I will leave you with is the VMware vs. Microsoft match up. VMware has openly declared war on Microsoft --but just how exactly will VMware message this at the show. I cannot wait to hear what VMware will say in its keynote.

What do you expect to see or hear at the show this year? I will be hanging around MokaFive’s booth (#1736), so would welcome your thoughts in person. This has always been one of my favorite shows, and I am excited for some real dialogue with some of the best minds out there.

Of course, we will also be demoing the MokaFive Suite, our new multi-tenancy capability and an exciting peek into a new forthcoming product that I believe will be a real game-changer. And we also will be giving away an iPad. Swing by for details.

Purnima Padmanabhan, VP of Products & Marketing

MokaFive at VMworld

This year’s VMworld conference is fast approaching, and we are beginning to feel the excitement as we prepare to participate after a two-year hiatus. Over the past couple of years, we’ve been focused on three key areas: refining our product, gaining customer wins, and raising awareness of MokaFive.

First, on the product front: I am proud to say that over the last two years, the team here has built an enterprise-class product with all the capabilities, scale, security and robustness to manage enterprise endpoints.

Second, a good product translates to customer wins, and we have started to see a big ramp up in production deployments. We've spent the last two years working very closely with our customers to solve the complexities of managing desktops and enabling choice computing for end users. We’re now seeing customers who initially bought into the concept of server-based desktop virtualization saying the model is too complex and not cost effective. MokaFive’s approach of centralizing the management of virtual desktops and having them execute locally at the endpoint - irrespective of the type of endpoint - is actually gaining a lot of traction and truly validating the strategy we’ve established.

Lastly, we recently raised a round of funding this past April to add to our successes. We are now in a place where we can focus on raising awareness of the product and of MokaFive as a company. With a robust strong product and a great, referenceable customer base, I feel we can put our foot forward strongly and confidently.

As we look ahead to VMworld in less than two weeks, we’re excited about the quality of conversations we expect to have with CIOs, IT managers, sys-admins and end users about desktop virtualization.

If you are planning to attend VMworld, come by MokaFive’s booth (#1736) to see a live demo of MokaFive Suite, learn more about MokaFive’s BareMetal Player, and enter to win an iPad. You can also follow our our Twitter stream for updates before and during the show.

We look forward to participating in VMworld 2010! Stay tuned for our next VMworld blog post where I will predict the emerging themes and trends that will be discussed at the VMworld show.

Purnima Padmanabhan, VP of Products & Marketing