Approach to VMworld v3 - Trending Topics On the Move
In this week’s installment of ‘Approach to VMworld,’ the Schwartz research team was at it again, analyzing topics covered by the tech reporters and bloggers we turn to for the latest, most comprehensive and thoughtful virtualization commentary.
Since the team conducted its last snapshot, we’ve seen a few significant shifts in topics of interest. In addition to highlighting what’s hot, we’re also looking at what’s moving. Many words, such as Security, vSphere and Microsoft, showed huge jumps – indicated by red, orange and yellow. Others, like SaaS, Management and Solutions are getting colder (though still significant) – shown in blues and purple.
‘Security,’ which was already red hot, continues its accelerated growth and ‘Support’ got a bump too. It’s not surprising that security and support continue upward. When InformationWeek Analytics surveyed enterprises to determine cloud computing concerns, the top three were related to security, followed by application and system performance and DR/BC of the provider. Content on the blogs and websites we track is targeted to potential enterprise IT buyers – many who are considering or already in the process of virtualizing their IT environments and moving some or all of that infrastructure to a public, private or hybrid cloud. To ensure that the concerns of the enterprise are addressed, many vendors include security and support messaging in most external communication. The more news announcements, vendor interviews, case studies, trend commentary and so on that we see, the more security and support will grow.
A key take-away from the research: At the end of the day, news is still a primary driver of content and buzz. The movement of trend topics proves it. Take for instance some of the biggest movers this week:
• While VMware maintains its dominant presence, helped by the release of vSphere 4.1, other players have joined the party. Up from last week are both Citrix and Microsoft. Schwartz prepared a tip sheet that offers vendors advice on how to maximize presence at VMworld. You can get more in-depth suggestions by downloading the tip sheet here, but one tip we included was to consider timing news with the event. Making a major announcement prior to the show can increase interest among media and analysts at the show. Though it’s not surprising to see the major players competing for share of voice, I’ll be interested to see presence for other vendors as we get closer to the conference. The one or two weeks before VMworld, expect vendor names to increase in size and prevalence in the word cloud.
• Another example of news as a driver is illustrated by virtual desktop management vendor Unidesk. Though it presence last week is small compared to VMware or Microsoft, the company still made the cloud. We’d attribute this to a few announcements that the company made in late June. With none since, Unidesk’s traction dropped off the radar, though “desktop” remained steady.
• Final proof point – check out the HUGE spike for vSphere around July 14 – fewer than 50 posts to more than 400 the days following the v4.1 announcement. Virtualization vendors: hitch your wagon to significant VMware news by being able to provide commentary and see a similar spike.
Posted by Mercedes Carrasco on July 27, 2010 at 11:14 AM
