Steve Herrod’s super session was one of the things I enjoyed most about this year’s VMworld. Not only were the technologies and ideas that were introduced inspiring and where I was hoping to see VMware head but there was real passion for making content accessible evident throughout the entire presentation. VMworld coming so soon after the great one day class from Edward Tufte really increased the impact of the message. I had been thinking of content in terms of Big Information, of how do we present information to people, how do we share and collaborate etc. Steve’s presentation pushed that point even further, it’s all about the content really, the receptacle that it’s delivered in is irrelevant, it could be a briefcase, or a Ming vase, all the end user cares about is what’s in it. Just take a gander at Vincent Vega there staring at Marsellus Wallace’s soul, the briefcase isn’t what was cool in Pulp Fiction, it’s what was in it.
One of the great things about the commoditization that is occurring right now in the end user compute space is that people are demanding what they want be delivered to whatever device they have handy at the moment. I access my email and calendar via a MacBook Pro, an iPad and an iPhone depending on what I have near me at the time. There are some things that I have to go to my MBP for every time, whether I like it or not and boy do I want that to change. What we saw on September 1st is a direct response to that desire on the part of end users. Virtual phones, HTML5, virtualized apps and desktops, and new ways to collaborate and share files, messages and ideas are where VMware is going and it’s all divorced from the container it is being delivered in. What could be more exciting, and more scarey?