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.

The term “cloud computing” conjures up different meanings and images to different people. For some, it might mean cloud storage, whether it’s music or documents. For others, it might be processing in the cloud (think Amazon EC2 or RackSpace). For others, it is applications.

However “cloud” is defined, the stakes are big. Mighty forces (i.e. IT vendors large and small) are lined up to deliver the cloud.

If one were to look up to the actual clouds in the sky, you could imagine the various players as Norse gods, ready to do battle. Based on its recent pricing announcement, we might think of VMware as Loki, the evil trickster. As he’s gained power, he threatens his subjects.

Open source is the good guy here, the Thor to VMware’s Loki. The open source KVM hypervisor is gaining strength. The formation of the Open Virtualization Alliance provides a communications medium for the players in the KVM ecosystem to extoll the virtues and capabilities of open source to help win the battle of the cloud. The open source hypervisor Xen, has also been a counterbalance to VMware for several years now. And we would be remiss, of course, if we did not mention that our own ConVirt 2.0 is providing a level of virtualization and cloud management heretofore not possible for Xen and KVM.

Other open source storm clouds are threatening VMware. The recent announcement by Citrix that it acquired open source-based Cloud.com is another potential threat to vendor lock-in.

The truth is that cloud computing is no myth. In its many forms, it is real, it is here and it would be most unfortunate for any single player to dominate the cloud with inflexible and predatory pricing.

May you find your Valhalla in the cloud(s) with open source.

Today we announced our inclusion into the OpenStack initiative, contributing resources and expertise. We look forward to making the project a success by joining forces with many others in the industry.

OpenStack is backed by 75 participating organizations from around the world in an important effort to create freely available code, standards, and a common ground to benefit consumers of cloud computing technology. We are excited to be a part of something so great.

We should note that last month, our company joined the Open Virtualization Alliance (OVA), which fosters the adoption of KVM as an open virtualization alternative to closed and expensive virtualization products. (Are you listening VMware?)

You see, at Convirture we’re big believers in making open source software available to and benefit all of our users. We expect to have more news to tell you about OpenStack.

Stay tuned.

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!

Take a look at Arsalan’s (our CEO) thoughts on Xen/KVM in today’s Linux Journal.

The fact that Xen is now in the Linux kernel is a cause for celebration. Customers who want to work with a virtualization solution now have a choice of not one, but two, solid virtualization tools for Linux. This proves once and for all that Linux is not only a viable cloud virtualization platform, it is in reality the more desirable platform for use in the cloud.