I've been keeping half an eye peeled on VMWorld this week, waiting to see what the virtualization leader's response to last week's Microsoft Get Virtual launch would be, but despite a flurry of press releases, there doesn't seem to be much there.

While it's not their fault, most of the product announcements, centered around client virtualization and cloud-like datacenter operations, are basically the same things that Microsoft promised, lending a sort of forlorn "me too" air to what needed to be a significant, groundbreaking conference. The most significant announcement, that of the Virtual Data Center Operating System (VDC-OS), seems to have produced more head-scratching than excitement, particularly as there is apparently not much other than the announcement to see just yet. I missed Paul Maritz's keynote address covering the technology, so I'm going off of press releases and other coverage, but from what I see so far, this isn't a winning move on VMWare's part.

I'll get around to watching the keynote sometime when I haul my Mac out to work on, as I'm having trouble with it on my Linux desktop (As an aside, I consider it a bad sign when a company that is purporting the ability to take all your disparate operating systems and applications and run them smoothly in its own unseen "cloud" OS can't put together a press website with sufficiently open standards that anyone with a modern browser can see everything that needs to be seen. RealPlayer, seriously? And Microsoft Word press releases? C'mon, guys, stick to your strengths!). I'm not sure that playing the vaporware game will be in VMWare's best interest, however. Existing Microsoft customers will delay buying VMWare products if Microsoft announces a competing product that is upcoming; it's easier to delay things and remain consistent, particularly if you're not heavily into virtualization yet. But most of them will also consider Microsoft's offering "good enough" when available and won't similarly delay their purchase if VMWare is promising something better.

And it's not clear how much better VDC-OS might be; it seems to be pretty much the same direction as the virtualization field has been heading anyway, with more application virtualization, less emphasis on operating systems, and more flexibility across hardware and locations. Microsoft is heading in the same direction, even to the extent of using the same cloud analogies as VMWare. It's a good direction, but it's not a groundbreaking idea, and no one seems to be on the cusp of delivering it yet either.