VMware Virtual Infrastructure to be renamed vSphere
December 19th, 2008 | 
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VMTN moderator and Roundtable podcast regular Jason Boche and virtualization bloggers Rick Schere and Scott Lowe are reporting that VMware will be changing the name of their flagship enterprise Virtual Infrastructure products from VI 3.5 to vSphere. Following mostly the same individuals’ tweets on Twitter I learned that the new name was decided via a vote by VMware employees. It’s unclear to me at this time when the name change will officially take place, but I imagine it will coincide with the availability of the next software release.
First some quotes from the other guys, and then my first impression.
Jason reports :
“Today at the Minneapolis VMware User Group (VMUG) meeting, VMware employees disclosed to a group of 150+ attendees the new name for the next generation of Virtual Infrastructure many have been referring to as VI4 or VI.next. The new name is VMware vSphere.”
Scott adds:
“Personally, I very much wished they had selected one of the other names they were tossing around. I liked “VMware Vantage.” vSphere? Who came up with this name, and what in the world is this supposed to mean? To me, it creates connotations of running around in a circle getting nowhere. Not exactly the image we want to create, is it?”
Rick hinted that the name was changing yesterday :
“The next release of VMware Virtual Infrastructure (VI4) will be renamed. It will no longer be Virtual Infrastructure and the VI branding will go away. The most I can tell you is that the new name will be out of this world.”
Read the full posts from each of these guys at the links provided in the first paragraph of this post.
My initial thoughts:
vSphere makes me think of Michael Crichton’s novel and the 1998 movie, The Sphere, which was about a spaceship found at the bottom of the ocean covered in 300 years of coral. When a team of scientists boards the technically advanced craft they discover a huge sphere on board. The Sphere turns out to be an alien with a child’s personality that causes strange manifestations based on the fears and anxieties of the individual crew members. Another mystery on this spaceship is that it apparently originated from Earth but came from the future. Which sort of supports Scott’s and Rick’s comments ….
Honestly, The novel / movie is what went through my mind when I read the posts tonight.
If I had been asked to vote on it I would have not agreed with this choice. It feels too conceptual to me. That may not be a solid reason, but the “warm fuzzy” factor is all I have to offer right now. Why not just use VDC-OS (I’ve already accepted that concept) or stick with VI? I hope to understand the method behind the madness as the VMware marketing plan unfolds over the next few weeks, months, and year.
I feel the same about the VDI product name changes too, but VMware View was another concept introduced at VMworld 2008 that I’ve had time to accept.
This is just my opinion, but all the conceptual stuff is gettting borderline vCloudy to me. It concerns me that if I feel I need to figure it out, then how are the analysts, reporters, VMware customers, and general public going to interpret the naming strategy?
updated 12.19.08 – after I finished writing this post I discovered David Marshall shares the same “gut” feelings about this name change too. David points out that Roger Lund was also at the same VMUG meeting as Jason.
updated 12.20.08 – Eric Sloof posted that vSphere appears to already be in use by a Home / Office / Industrial surveillance Application. Hmmm …
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