10 things seen and heard at VMworld

1. 14,000 people showed up for VMworld at the Venetian in Las Vegas, more than twice the number of people who actually work for the host company. VMware has 6,000 employees, including 2,500 in research and development, CTO Stephen Herrod said.

2. Microsoft conducted some guerrilla marketing at VMworld, passing out fake casino chips directing attendees to a Web site titled "VMware Costs Way Too Much." The Microsoft-hosted site says "Looking for your best bet? You won't find it with VMware," and provides several links to virtualization pages on Microsoft.com.

3. VMware CEO Paul Maritz is a former Microsoft executive. He amusedly remarked on "the fact that the great and mighty Microsoft is forced to come out here and dish out chochkees to our customers."

Reflecting on his own work history, Maritz said "as somebody who has perpetrated guerrilla campaigns in the past, it's what the follower does, it's not what the leader does."

4. During a Q&A session with dozens of media members, Maritz was asked about the "mood" of VMware employees following the firing of former CEO Diane Greene and trouble with VMware's stock. There's always a certain amount of concern after a leadership change, he noted, but VMware employees "really respond to environments where they have deep and meaningful challenges."

"Whatever angst there may or may not be at the current time will be a passing phenomenon," Maritz said.

5. Is VMware building a 4,096-core server? Not really, but the company claims that its forthcoming Virtual Datacenter Operating System, which will aggregate virtual servers into easily controlled resource pools, will be able to manage as many as 4,096 processor cores in a single pool.

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