Anyone paying attention to the “bigger picture” at VMworld couldn’t help but notice VMware’s headlong rush into VDI – and beyond.

We’ve seen for years the Citrix ownership of desktop virtualization in various guises. Today, VMware began chasing the 800 lbs. gorilla VDI. So now the 800 lbs. gorilla in sever virtualization is trying to jump into the desktop. Or, is VMware just giving Citrix something to worry about/invest against while actually planning to leap frog the desktop? I mean, VMware is clearly playing catch-up to Citrix — doubling down to try to get to parity with Citrix. They are considerably behind and don’t, as a company, play catch up well.

But what’s potentially far more exciting is this “leap frog”, getting on the post pc bandwagon – mobile devices as the end-point device. Although right now this is more strategy than reality, it plays far better (although still a departure) with the technology the VMware IS good at – all the server stuff and leveraging HTML 5 and other browser-based technologies. This indeed could be a space well worth owning.  – HTML 5 and other mobile technologies.

Lastly, I have to say Project Octopus struck a discordant note with me: it smacks of an “assets looking for a problem” approach. VMware seems to be doing their level best to cram in their collaboration assets into the mix. It is awkward and muddies the pretty picture they are trying to paint with these announcements.

We’ll see how all this plays out of course and what themes evolve in the coming months.

Any time a disruptive, game-changing technology enters the marketplace, the old guard circles the wagons to defend the territory. We saw it when the internal combustion engine replaced horses, when mainframes were giving way to client-server, when Linux threatened Unix … you get the gist.

So it is with virtualization.

VMware is the current market leader. But as we’ve seen over and over again, just because something is, does not mean it always shall be.

Recently, Convirture and a host of other innovative companies joined the Open Virtualization Alliance (OVA), a group dedicated to supporting and promoting Kernel-based Virtual Machine (KVM) virtualization technology. The OVA was launched with great fanfare and success in May and seems to be gaining momentum.

Recently, SearchServerVirtualization did what any good journalism outlet would do and cast a critical eye at the OVA after all the initial launch hoopla. The title, “Open Virtualization Alliance unlikely to unseat VMware” pretty much gives you the tone of the story.

It’s a fair and well-written piece, but we can all agree that the OVA will not be bidding for contracts against VMware. The OVA was formed to educate the market about KVM and, in that regard, it is already succeeding. Ultimately, however, it will be KVM and the vendors and ecosystem that support it that will unseat VMware, not any industry alliance.

The fact is that IT managers are living under the tyranny of a single vendor – VMware – and that is never good for customers. KVM represents a real choice – an alternative that can reduce costs and increase ROI.

If the OVA is successful in helping the world know that there is a choice, so much the better. But the market will decide winners and losers based on head-to-head competition on price, features and performance. As the CEO of a company that for the past five years has been working on technology to support open source-based virtualization, including KVM, I am more than happy and confident to take that fight to VMware.

Let the best technology (and the customers) win!