I just walked out of my last session for VMWorld 2008 and I've got just a few minutes to put up a quick blog post on my overall impression of the show - It was a great conference.
VMware has outlined a very broad and forward looking vision of the future. This is in contrast to the past when they seemed to be much more focused on specific feature enhancements. I think that the talk of the vcloud may be a bit early, and there aren't any details yet, but it is a good vision.
The increased focus on building a platform with APIs for 3rd parties to add to the VMware solution is a big deal. This is probably highlighted by the announcement of the Cisco Virtual switch and the stuff coming with enhanced VCB capabilities.
Clients, clients, clients. I think that I am beginning to get the idea that VMware is really interested in doing more on the client. The demos during the keynote as well as the large amount of client related breakout sessions indicates the push. But perhaps most telling was Paul Maritz's comment during his keynote about how he felt that the client opportunity was at least as big as what VMware is today.
These are my impressions - so feel free to offer your own - I would love to hear other perspectives.
I'll be writing more blog posts here about what happened at the show, and also on my home site - www.delltechcenter.com.
Todd