WMworld 2010: 10 Key Points

As this year’s VMworld fades into memory, Drew Robb reports on the industry confab’s key points. in short: storage was a very, very big deal.

VMware’s VMworld conference has come and gone with a cavalcade of storage vendors putting their stamp on the show with product announcements, demonstrations and presentations for the more than 17,000 attendees. Beyond the product parade, there were some takeaways from the show that gave Enterprise Storage Forum a glimpse into what might be the future of a data storage industry transformed by virtualization and the cloud.

1. Storage Vendors Have Gone Ga-Ga for VMware

There seemed to be more storage vendors at VMworld than show up at Storage Networking World (SNW) as evidenced by the number of press releases that hit the wires this week from storage companies. The flood of storage news out of VMworld was far greater than the flow that used to happen at SNW a few years back.

“VMworld has become a focal point for storage providers,” said Greg Schulz, an analyst with StorageIO Group. “Storage vendors seem to be in race to see who is the most virtual.”

2. EMC Made A Very Smart Buy

Many analysts puzzled over EMC’s (NYSE:EMC) purchase of VMware (NYSE: VMW) a few years back. But had it not been for that acquisition, EMC would be on the outside looking in. It now stands front and center, with all storage and IT vendors lining up to be its friend. If the deal hadn’t happened, EMC would be in a long line behind Cisco, HP, IBM and a host of others vying for VMware attention.

3. VMworld Meets EMC World

Such is the cohesion of VMware and EMC that their trade shows now preach the same mantra. EMC’s tag line is “Journey to the Private Cloud,” while VMware’s is “Virtual Roads, Actual Clouds.” This leads me to believe that…

Read the rest at Enterprise Storage Forum.