Friends don’t let friends, like VMware, act like Google

[mjmcdonough]

Found this to not only be funny, but in many ways true:

"I like VMware. I like Google. Heck, both of them keep me more than busy

with development ideas. But I have a problem with them. Google started

it with Gmail. Although it is hard to remember now, Gmail was in beta

forever. Oh wait, it still is? Huh. I guess I just figured it must

have hit production by now. Then there is Google News, Google Apps,

Google Page Creator, Google everything else — all beta . I am honestly

surprised search hits don’t come back with the “beta” tag next to them.

I guess they thought ICQ was the cat’s meow, and that the whole beta

thing had a nice ring to it."

Read more at:

ITKnowledgeexchange.com

[mreferre]

This guy has a point. I have the same feeling.

On a practical note one should also think about what "support" means. This is a long story and I have already posted my opinion on what "supported" means in the x86 space (in short: the assurance to have someone on the other side of the phone if something goes wrong..... which is not the assurance that what you are doing will work FOR SURE).

Looking into the matter from this (practical) view one could argue that "experimental support" is a sort of "warning" that the feature being marked "experimental" might likely to fail more than a feature NOT being marked "experimental".

Having this said I agree that VMware likes to play on the wording for their interest based on the battle-ground being considered (i.e. I have rarely seen/heard the term experimental in positioning discussions against the competition).

Massimo.

[mjmcdonough]

I agree. It's almost as if VMware and Google find themselves getting overzealous about certain features, instead of spending a greater amount of time on developing more cohesive versions of said features. But then again, it's not as if they are the only two in the industry that do this. Thanks for the reply though, appreciate it.

[Brianck]

Agreed, I am the first to want a shinny new feature but you have to keep investing in making the staples even better or you lose your base...

[Texiwill]

Hello,

If the feature is experimental (DPM, SVMotion, for example) then it should not be toughted as a feature until it is ready for prime time and there are appropriate user interfaces to work with each. I do not mind the experimental features being made part of VMware's flagship product but saying it is a 'feature' before its ready gives them a black eye when things stop working or fail outright..... It would be very cool if there was a toggle in the configuration that 'enabled' experimental features and warned you about downtime etc. and also provided some sort of GUI to use them properly.... Just a suggestion.

Best regards,

Edward L. Haletky

VMware Communities User Moderator

====

Author of the book 'VMWare ESX Server in the Enterprise: Planning and Securing Virtualization Servers', Copyright 2008 Pearson Education. CIO Virtualization Blog: http://www.cio.com/blog/index/topic/168354, As well as the Virtualization Wiki at http://www.astroarch.com/wiki/index.php/Virtualization

[Brianck]

GUI is always good and I agree making this as plugins that you do not have to load or they are not seen in the main console helps when you give that demo to management...