Storagebod Rotating Header Image

VMwoe

Picture the scene

Paul Maritz makes his way to the stage at VM-World; his clothes are rent, his face is dirty with ashes and his wild and unkempt;

‘Devotees can you forgive me? I have wronged you with the new licensing scheme and you have cried out to me in pain and distress. But fear not, I heard your cries and I have relented, we have returned to the path of licensing righteousness….’

The wild-eyed acolytes cheer and cry;

‘Of course we forgive you; you are loving and caring leader, you have heard our cries! Now get off the stage and let the Killers play…..’

When the main story of a major release is the licensing model; you’ve messed up big! When it almost drowns out every new feature and enhancement….well, you’ve just become the new Oracle.

Now unlike Oracle, VMware appear to have listened to their customers but to get into this mess in the first place means that they don’t really understand their customers and not communicating with them properly in the first place.

And now it means that every major release is going to have its license scrutinised and the first question that people are going to ask is ‘How has the license changed?’

Of course that probably means that VMware are now just as evil as every other software company out there….sad really.

And I just wonder if a few major customers have taken this as an incentive to have a look round and see what other virtualisation tools there are out there. It would be nice to see the virtualisation landscape become less of a monoculture.


3 Comments

  1. EtherealMind says:

    It possible they thought they had a monopoly and could charge what they liked and have had a rude awakening that customers aren’t vendor blind.

    Also, wanna bet that Joe Tucci isn’t happy either ? I wonder if EMC was betting on more profits from VMware to strengthen their numbers.

  2. Martin Glassborow says:

    That did cross my mind…but I’d rather attribute to stupidity as opposed to malice. But it could just have been greed.

    I know VMware would love the conversation to move on from VRAM but I think it is important to understand the motivations and thought processes behind licensing decisions. And perhaps it is important for people to realise that at times, you need a Plan ‘B’; this at least keeps the vendor honest.

  3. shmick says:

    With XenServer lagging so far behing VMware in terms of total memory per VM and the lack of anything as nice as VAAI, I think this will be a one horse race for a while.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *