And the big news out of VMworld Europe 2009 is ...

I don't know yet what the big news is, but the virtualization market is red hot right now and VMware is by far the market leader, but there are lots of new market entrants. I won't be at Cannes (drat!) where the conference is being held. VMware is in large part owned by EMC and oversees the VMworld conference. The conference has to tread that fine line between being a captive event but allowing competitors and dissent to take place.Here are 5 news possibilities:

1. Of course the biggest news that could come out of the show would be for Cisco to buy VMware from EMC. This is not idle speculation, but neither is it an acknowledged fact by any of the parties. But consider: Cisco has ambitions for extending its virtualized footprint, it has been raising cash and -- at least according to a Reuters report -- "Cisco System Inc's (CSCO.O) pursuit of virtualization software maker VMware Inc (VMW.N) could be more serious than many on Wall Street believed, as the network equipment maker searches for new sources of growth." That would be big news indeed. I wonder if Cisco could swallow the whole enchilada including EMC?

2. Competitors giving away their product. Fellow blogger Steven Vaughan-Nichols broke this story. He wrote, "Citrix is about to put a world of hurt on its virtualization rival, VMware. Next week, Citrix will be announcing that it will no longer charge for its flagship virtualization program XenServer 5, and its new management program, Citrix Essentials, will support both Microsoft's Hyper-V and XenServer."

3. Which leads me to number three. VMware users are intensely loyal, but  even loyalists have a hard time justifying big price differentials in a slow economy. The company has been responding to rivals (including rolling back a price increase last November in some non-U.S. markets) and coming up some free products of its own at the low end. The money in virtualization is in administration and management systems and support. At some point, VMware needs to rewrite and clarify its pricing structure. Europe would be a good place to do that. 

4. Painting the big picture. VMware replaced founder and CEO Diane Greene with ex-Microsoft exec Paul Maritz. Ok,even a CEO has to move on at some time (especially when the numbers get shaky) Maritz still needs to paint the big virtualization picture and explain how VMware will get its mojo back. Europe would be a good place to do that.

5. Lots of news from the VMware competition. We already talked about Citrix, but one thing that VMworld does is put the spotlight on virtualization. That spotlight gives the competition (Microsoft, Novell, Citrix, lots of others) the opportunity to one-up VMware. Let me know how the food and drinks were at the competitor's suites.