VMWare in the Office?

Posted on 30. Apr, 2011 by admin in Enterprise Architecture, Feature, Musings

It’s so interesting to watch the technology sideshows that go on constantly – sometimes humorous and entertaining, but insignificant. And at other times heralding very significant shifts in the industry, and those who respond early – as early adopters or investors – benefit from their foresight.

So here’s an interesting little tidbit that recently came across my desk (laptop). It might just fall in the never ending category of small companies trying to grab some market segment from the industry giants, or… it might be one of the key developments leading to the IT-as-a-utility era.

“VMWare Makes a Move on Office” by Maureen O’Gara, is an interesting piece about one of my favorite companies, VMWare. There’s no question that VMWare’s products have made a huge impact as an enabler of more powerful, flexible, and cost effective computing. But as an office productivity suite — even a cloud-based suite?

Are the moves reported in this article strategically sound? Will they be a distraction from the mission? Check out the article and let me know what you think.

VMware Makes a Move on Office
— Ah, the gloves are coming off. VMware, under the guise of a proprietary virtualization company, is inching up the software stack to horn in on Microsoft’s prized Office turf, a piece of ground well known to its CEO, ex-Microsoft nabob Paul Maritz.
It’s bought SlideRocket, a five-year-old San Francisco SaaS-based business presentation ISV that leverages cloud computing, collaboration, social media and mobile computing platforms, giving it a practically perfect checklist score, especially if you throw in the fact that, in keeping with the custom of the day, it gives its entry-level widgetry away for free.
This checklist paradigm claims more than 20,000 customers and 300,000 users, a base it’s built up since its software left beta in October of 2008. In that space of time it says its widgetry was used to produce 10 million presentations.