VMware Chief Redefines Virtualization, But Doesn’t Make Case for Real Innovation

vThis, vThat, Virtualization Redefined

VMware CEO Paul Maritz redevfined virtualization this week.

He spent most of his keynote speech at VMworld yesterday defining the goals not only for VMware’s product set, but also the company’s expectations for the evolution of the data center.

The main portion of VMware’s strategy revolves around its Virtual Data Center OS (VDC-OS), a new product plan that, essentially changes the name ESX to VDC-OS.

There’s a little more to it, but less than you’d think.

The building blocks of VDC-OS, for example, are elements called vCompute, vStorage and vNetwork, each of which is dedicated to the part of the virtualization infrastructure inherent in its name.

Those elements aren’t really much different from ESX as it is structured now, with the exception of the new one, vCloud, which is an update and renaming of the VMware ESX Cluster.

Redefinition is good if it leads to the future, and Maritz did lay out his view of the future.

One important element of where VMware would like to go is toward a situation in which the vClient can on any device—thin, thick or mobile.

Yet this is not very new either. VMware has talked about that model before and about most of the rest of the ‘revelations,’ most of which are simply changes in terminology. The reality might outstrip the early definitions, but so far the basics look like this: