Tom Valovic over at Virtualization Review magazine pens an interesting (albeit short) comment about VMware's current positioning and how it resembles that of previous notorious companies like WordPerfect Banyan, and DEC. What he's trying to get across through a comment he presents is that:

I realize that it's a tradition in the computer industry, but I find it a little disappointing to see virtualisation giant VMware following the same competitive marketing obsession that made industry powerhouses of Banyan Systems, WordPerfect, Digital Equipment and Novell. Each of those companies, at one time, were considered absolutely dominant in their own markets and gradually lost those positions partially by focusing on the elegant engineering of their original product set and failing to recognise the point at which customers began to take that function for granted.

This comment initially came from Kevin Fogarty over at Computerworld, specifically from this post. Although this is my impression entirely, I feel somewhat similar in what I see coming out of VMware's product stable of late. Namely, too much money for products that have rough equivalents now available for a significantly lower price point.

I've talked a lot before about what I call "the commoditization of virtualization", the process whereby those companies with the second-mover's advantage bring about sufficient alternate products to market that drives down the price. The most specific of these is Hyper-V, soon to release from Microsoft. It is the impression of this blogger, especially after hearing what I've heard out of Tech Ed last week, that Hyper-V's technology and price point are about to be a significant problem for VMware upon release.