VMware starts road show ahead of planned IPO

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Success Story involving VmWare

Yesterday, after 6 months of trying, decision makers finally gave the go ahead to install the free server version of VMware at one of my shops. This organization is a Microsoft shop that recently went SUN hardware and Citrix. I was sitting in a meeting discussing a problem with some old applications (Word Perfect 8) that were not working under Citrix. The issues involved the Windows 2003 registry and macro execution.

In the pre VMware days, the solution would have involved upgrading WordPerfect 8 to a newer version of WordPerfect or swapping out WordPerfect 8 for Word or Open Office. An alternate solution might have involved an additional Citrix server loaded on top of Windows 2000, instead of Windows 2003. All those options involved costs for hardware, software, or training.

The light bulbs finally went on. The decision makers (a network manager and an IT manager) agreed to VMware.

The significance of this can not be understated. The Microsoft criminal business model is no longer viable.

In the near past, Microsoft's introduction of a new operating system product would set in motion problems with older software that would require expenditures involving upgrading or patching them. Today - owing to VMware - the older software runs as a web appliance. In addition, old licenses for old Microsoft products find new value. In this case the organization already had unused Windows 2000 licenses.

The notion of software code being a perishable - something Bill Gates believed would have no value after 5 years - has never been correct. Software code is more like a foundation upon which business processes are built. It can live as long as the business when written and maintained appropriately.

The implication of the VMware IPO is four fold.

First, top level executives who dabble in the stock market become educated.

Second, they encourage IT professionals to download the free server version of VMware and see if the IPO promoters are for real.

Third, because the value is so obvious to IT staff, the free server software gets implemented. Next come the questions that IT professionals need to have the answers for NOW.

So here they are.

1. VMware makes money by selling client versions of VMware. These tools are applicable to every early adopter. For example, after work, a discussion reviled that a hard core Linux faithful had purchased a client version of Vmware. So had a hard core Microsoft faithful. Both ran Linux at the hardware level and a Microsoft operating system in VMware. Both planned to eventually load Vista in VMware. VMware made money on both of them.

Eventually the early adopters will put creations in VMware on servers. That makes them Web Appliances. We already have Web Appliances with old DOS video games. But complete office web appliances are also created. To run the Web Appliance, general computer users will purchase VMware clients.

2. Vmware also makes or will make money with software that converts the physical desktop into a web appliance and with software that does the opposite. The value in this is protection from Microsoft automatic updates and virus attacks, which in my opinion (IMO), are equally destructive in the work place. When a computer is damaged, the virtual gets restored to the physical.

3. Vmware makes money by selling services to companies like Microsoft and Citrix who will incorporate these concepts into future operating system products.

The question I can not answer is why VMware needs an IPO. If the stock offering is a small one then the answer is simply advertisement. There is no better way to get the attention of corporate executives. If the issue is that Microsoft is trying to purchase the talent, and I think this likely, then we still have work involving anti-trust to do. I fear that Microsoft operatives may purchase IPO shares. VMware threatens greatly Microsoft. It is not unlike the Netscape browser and Java which also threatened.

Frank L. Mighetto CCP
go VMware, become like Google
Rise American Programmers

Posted by: mighetto   Posted on: 08/01/07 You are currently: a Guest | Members login | Terms of Use

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