This week I am at VMworld 2011, an event that I have never attended before.  In the VMworld vernacular, that makes me a New-V, with the button to prove it!

I survived the first day, and from my New-V perspective, here’s what I saw.

• Crowds - VMware may be a leader in virtualization, but there is only one thing you can do with 20,000 people.  Pack them in.
• Devices – The best way to see technology trends is to watch 20,000 people you’ve never met.  I saw smart phones, tablets, and laptops in abundance.  Each being used in different ways but not separately.  Many people are using laptops and smartphones together as a useful package for checking their schedule on their laptop while listening to music on their smartphone; or taking photos with their smartphone while editing a blog with their laptop for example. 

• Clouds – The theme for VMworld 2011 is “Own It. Your Cloud.”  Whether its public, private or hybrid clouds, virtualization will be a key enabler as VMware CEO Paul Maritz explained in the opening keynote.  Maritz also highlighted Dell as the newest member of companies to provide cloud solutions based on the VMware vCloud Datacenter service.  Dell TechCenter virtualization evangelist and vExpert Kong Yang, has more on this announcement in his blog today.

• Surprises – For fun, an indoor park was created with grassy areas, sport courts (basketball, badminton,  and volleyball), and an overgrown chess set surrounded by plenty of park benches.  The virtual park was topped off with simulated sunlight.  Nice touch.

Dell has a huge presence at VMworld.  The Dell booth is front and center in the Solutions Exchange and  highlights all of our Storage and Virtualization solutions.  I was able to meet lots of customers who stopped by the Dell booth, and being a New-V, I asked them “what brought you to VMworld?”  Many responded that they are responsible for servers and server virtualization in their company, but a close second was from the storage engineers who were looking for the Compellent and EqualLogic teams.

If you are at VMworld this week, the Dell TechCenter team has highlighted all of the Dell activities in one easy location.  If you can’t make it to VMworld this year, you can follow the action from DellatVMworld.com

Stay tuned for more updates from VMWorld by the Dell TechCenter team.