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Welcome to the Ultimate Virtual Appliance Challenge! /me is astonished and surprised every time VMware is hitting the market with such positive marketing efforts as we have seen the last few months. Everytime they've been providing something that is too good to be true. Now, what could we possibly make to satisfy such a exclusive hand picked judging panel? I guess this will create lots of buzz in the OSS community and a many entries. Something that will benefit all parts. Lars

I just had a terrible doubt! Aren't prize money virtual too??? Alessandro Perilli, CISSP, MVP http://www.alessandroperilli.com Blogging about IT Security on http://www.securityzero.com Blogging about Virtualization on http://www.virtualization.info

Hi All, Welcome to the Ultimate Virtual Appliance Challenge! Since the launch of VMware Player, we have seen a tremendous interest in virtual appliances. One example of a very useful and popular virtual appliance is the Browser Appliance. Over 250,000 folks have downloaded this to safely and securely browse the internet. Not only are users downloading appliances from VMTN but they are also creating and sharing their own (see the community contributed section of VMTN). Just in the last several weeks, we have had over 40 appliances contributed by the community. We wanted to foster innovation and reward folks for their effort and hence, the contest to create the ultimate virtual appliance. The total prize money is $200,000 USD with first prize worth $100,000 USD, second prize worth $50,000 USD and third prize worth $25,000 USD. In addition, there are five best-of-category awards worth $5,000 USD each. You can find out the contest rules and other information at: www.vmware.com/challenge. We are also very excited about the judging panel. Dr. Mendel Rosenblum, co-founder and chief scientist at VMware will be chief judge/convener. Tim O'Reilly (founder of O'Reilly media) and Mark Shuttleworth (founder of Ubuntu Linux) have agreed to be on the panel. Dave Parsons, sr VP of engineering at ALG Software and a VMware customer for many years, is on the panel. Jason Brooks (eWeek) and Roger Howorth (IT Week) - both well known technology journalists - are also on the panel. Rounding out the panel is Stephen Elliot, research analyst at IDC. Please use this forum to discuss any contest-related issues with your peers. VMware employees will monitor and try to answer as many questions as possible. Good luck! This is going to be a fun contest and we can't wait to see the entries. Best, Srinivas