VM /ETC

And at the end of the day they've still changed their sponsorship agreement..

VMware's linked clarification doesn't make a reversal of the change that “Sponsors and exhibitors must market or demonstrate products on the exhibition floor and in the sessions which are complementary to VMware products and technologies.”

Their clarification says “We encourage companies to exhibit and participate that compete with us in one fashion, but complement us in others. It’s all about customers and community!”

So where would this leave exhibitors who only make products that compete?

The vagueness and ambiguousness of the clarification really just makes me go “hmmmm….” even more, as it leaves open questions.

I agree with the extreme example you provided above. It would be fine if that's exactly how it was worded, but it's not, it's very vague. With the current language Veeam may only be allowed to show the nworks products (maybe Monitor). All other products have a competing component from VMware. The only difference is that we didn't create products to compete with VMware, they created products to compete with us. Does that give us a legal loop-hole?

I completely understand the “intent” of the wording and I know all the arguments including yours Rich. I honestly don't think Veeam will be asked NOT to show Backup, Configurator, Reporter, Monitor, etc – but we COULD be asked not to…

Based on VMware's past promise that VMworld would basically be THE virtualization conference, they shouldn't care all that much, it really just showed the childishness of who they're up against and makes VMware look even better..

The attendees of VMworld should know who MS is and why they're not an objective, reliable voice in trying to say anything about VMware or Hyper-V.
But yes, MS deserve to get slapped.

They could have just imposed special sanctions against MS, before allowing them to sign up…

The anti-competitive clause doesn't say “you can't trash VMware”; in theory, a competitor could still trash VMware as long as they don't mention a competing product….

There are other simple precise ways to ban trashing than to simply say no competing products may be exhibited.

For instance, they can ban the practice of handing out any sort of materials without materials being approved by whoever's running the specific events.

No handing out leaflets or other items at meetings or in places other than your conference booth.

No discouraging the purchase of any VMware product.

It's pretty simple to impose a no-trashing policy.
I suspect either they didn't think about it too much, or they were trying to do a little more.

Based on VMware's past promise that VMworld would basically be THE virtualization conference, they shouldn't care all that much, it really just showed the childishness of who they're up against and makes VMware look even better..

The attendees of VMworld should know who MS is and why they're not an objective, reliable voice in trying to say anything about VMware or Hyper-V.
But yes, MS deserve to get slapped.

They could have just imposed special sanctions against MS, before allowing them to sign up…

The anti-competitive clause doesn't say “you can't trash VMware”; in theory, a competitor could still trash VMware as long as they don't mention a competing product….

There are other simple precise ways to ban trashing than to simply say no competing products may be exhibited.

For instance, they can ban the practice of handing out any sort of materials without materials being approved by whoever's running the specific events.

No handing out leaflets or other items at meetings or in places other than your conference booth.

No discouraging the purchase of any VMware product.

It's pretty simple to impose a no-trashing policy.
I suspect either they didn't think about it too much, or they were trying to do a little more.