Tuesday, September 16, 2008

VMworld 2008 first posting

Hi All,

We wanted to send out some pictures to give you an update on VMworld 2008.

First, I have to say the road trip was quite good. I left Lafayette at around 6:00 am and we arrived in Las Vegas arounf 6:00pm that night. Luckily there is actually a Starbucks in Barstow, CA. That was likely the highlight of the trip.

I also had to include this image of the world's largest thermometer. We really hoped it might be actually using alcohol or Mercury and were quite disappointed to see that it was digital. Oh well.

Even with 2500 lbs. of marketing crap (err branding materials and collateral) the van handled quite well. We even let Benjamin drive :-)

For all the talk about Nevada being a tourist economy, we found this sign to be an omen of what was to come...

(If the irony to too subtle, I found it funny that the "Welcome Center" was closed.) By far the most common sight between the Nevada state loine and Las Vegas was the Highway Patrol. I think we counted at least 20 cruisers in less than 1 hour. Many times the had multiple cars pulled over at once. Appartently this is the new profit center for Nevada, California drivers.

More importantly, the show has been a great success thus far. The booth setup went smoothly. The giant Pano has really succeeded in helping draw the crowd. People just like shiny things, much like fish lures, if you spin a giant gleaming piece of chrome in front of people, they will come over to try to figure out just what you are trying to show.

On a more serious note, we have spoken to...
1. Lot of partners who say their customers have asked them about Pano, and they want to know more to help sell it.
2. Lot sof current customers who are happy, enthusiastic, and excited to see the 2.5 alpha.
3. Lots of customers in our target demographic who ARE going to deploy VDI and are looking for the right solution.

Thanks again for all the hard work preparing for the show. playing Youtube on the demo stations really does make people ooh and ahh, an indication that they really do understand the limitations of RDP.

We have already distributed an easy 250-350 DVDs to folks who seem excited to go kick the tires, and have the ESX/VC environment to try it out.

We also hosted a partner reception last night after the floor opening gala. It was elbow to elbow in a 1200 square foot suite with lots of new partners we haven't yet met. What makes this even more impressive is that we were competing against the Monday Night Football party in the sportsbook next door. Truly impressive!

The booth is starting to get overrun again, so I better sign off. I'll try to post more tomorrow.




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