August 4th, 2009
One hundred sixty and counting
I’ve spoken with representatives of over 150 different companies so far this year who offer some form of hardware, software or service offering that is focused on virtualized environments. If I throw in those who are flogging a “cloud computing solution” this number rises to over 160. This figure is already larger than the entire year of 2008. My contact list is now large enough that my iPhone chokes up for a time before allowing me to do a search!
The areas of most intense activity are virtual processing software, software to manage virtualized environments and storage for virtualized environments I’ve had a sharp uptick of user or desktop virtualization suppliers as well.
As is often the case, small innovative companies are first to introduce me to a concept. Larger suppliers often come in and speak with me about the same concept 8 to 10 months later.
If a company starts a conversation with “we have a unique idea,” I can be almost certain that I’ve heard it before they called. On many occasions, the approach they’re presenting was first introduced in the realm of mainframes 2 to 3 decades ago and then appeared in midrange systems 10 years later. They may be unique in the world of industry standard systems, but they’re certainly not unique.
I guess George Santayna was right when he said “Those who do not learn from history are doomed to repeat it”
Daniel Kusnetzky is a member of the senior management team of The 451 Group. He is responsible for research and publications on a broad array of technology topics. He examines emerging technology trends, vendor strategies, research and development issues, and end-user integration requirements. You can follow Dan on Twitter. See his full profile and disclosure of his industry affiliations.
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| 08/05/09
