VMWorld Turnout – A Sign of Recovery?

VMWorld is in full swing in San Francisco this week, and attendance has gone far beyond all predictions. I’ve heard a number of estimates, ranging from 12,000-15,000. In any case, the attendance has blown away their original prediction of 8,000-10,000. Seems there were a lot of last-minute registrees.

The downside of this is that the events–particularly the labs–are now so overbooked that there are reports of two hour waits for demos. Sessions are hard to get into as well. Even the expo floor has been snarled with pedestrian traffic.

Here are some of the reasons that could account for the unexpected upsurge in attendance at this year’s VMWorld:

Virtualization is a technology that promises to actually reduce costs, particularly around power and space. As Stephen Herrod, CTO of VMWare told attendees in his keynote this morning, the machines that are being used to run VMWorld itself would take up the equivalent of three football fields if it weren’t for virtualization. Instead, they all fit into one end zone. So even in a recession, companies are willing to invest in this technology.

Virtualization has given, but it has also taken away–that is, there is a storage bottleneck as a result of the complexity it has created. End users are forced to educate themselves about potential storage solutions (and other simplifying technology) to reduce the pain they’re experiencing as a result of this new level of complexity.

As an example, I was at a dinner event last night for a new company that just has come out of stealth, EvoStor. VMWare CEO Paul Maritz spoke at the event, a sign that the company is taking this seriously. In a nutshell, the company claims to be storage designed specifically for VMWare vSphere. It was built from the ground up, they say, to manage the challenges and complexity of virtualization. It’s too early to tell of course whether this will be a better solution than the ones out there now, but its very existence supports this argument.

Possibility number three: the economy is recovering! This is the sunniest view, but given my moniker I should be allowed this one. I do think that many companies are loosening the purse strings for corporate travel, particularly in areas where the expense could be so easily justified.

The mood at this year’s VMWorld is certainly very upbeat. I’ve seen vendor presos–particularly in storage–truly mobbed by attendees. I’ve spent time at the EMC, NetApp, Isilon, and HP booths and there’s a ton of activity. Even some of the smaller concerns, such as Asigra, have a steady stream of traffic. Now, this could all be due to the raffle announcements, attractive “booth babes” in nurse uniforms, magicians and jugglers, but I’d also like to believe that there’s real interest here from potential customers.

All in all, an exciting show. I feel lucky to be there to see and experience the bleeding edge of tech.