The honeymoon is over
I was also at VMworld SF this year, and Barcelona 2012 before that. I would agree that there is rapid innovation happening within other parts of the virtualization space and as a result VMware has lost a bit of its wow factor. But this was inevitable.
I think the problem lies in not how VMware are refusing to accept the commoditization of their core hypervisor and management software, but rather in their lack of presence in this thing we call Cloud. They had no choice but launch vCHS, and what would we be saying if they hadn't, even Microsoft have their Azure platform... (recent outages non withstanding)
VMware need to adapt to avoid becoming a victim of their own success. The huge ecosystem they have created provides everything a virtualization shop could need, but it screams lock-in and comes at too high a price. I think their expansion into desktop and application virtualization was a good move and helps keep Citrix on their toes.
But what next? What is going to make VMworld 2014 an event you really want to go to and not worry about the lock-in? I certainly don't know.
Biting the hand that feeds IT
