I have to ask, just how many VMware certified professionals are there on Planet Earth?
40,000? 50,000? 100,000?
Actually, to narrow it down, how many VMware professionals can you expect to find at any decent VMUG gathering?
400? 500?
Why then, would VMware – the company – then commission a survey of 376 random vPeople in order to come to the quite insane conclusion that Macs are taking over?
I am not a statistician, but I can play one here, and declare, without fear of contradiction, that this is definitely NOT a representative sample.
Not of VMware professionals.
Not of of the stakeholder end users.
And most definitely, it is NOT a representative sample of the most important constituency involved in the decision making: the owners or corporate leaders who would make the actual buying decision.
Making matters even more absurd, why would VMware, the afore-mentioned company, not its eponymous product, have a marketing shill ‘report’ the findings as something sentient IT managers should give a flying funk about?
Seriously, why?
Are you telling me that they couldn’t conduct a survey of those same VMware professionals while they – the professionals – are on their eternal hamster-wheel-like certification courses, and get a more representative and infinitely more knowledgeable and relevant sample?
Let’s put aside the easiest answer: hubris, because they – VMware – are the current Kings of the [hypervisor] family.
It then leaves us with the next, and in this case, the only obvious answer: fear.
Yes, people: fear.
Whenever a dominant category-definer and leader is suddenly faced with formidable competition for the first time, their instinctive initial reaction is to sow seeds of fair, uncertainty, and doubt, aka FUD.
This inanity smacks of a survey conducted to validate a previously decided upon conclusion.
That said, I am saddened that VMware, a company I hold in high regard, would resort to something as infra dig as this silly survey.
Scarily, this, and the smack I hear uttered by several VMware professionals reminds me of the same kinds of hubristic banter Novell Netware ‘professionals’ used to console themselves with back in the day.
I mean, we all knew that Netware was invincible, and would win out, right?
In case you’re asking, OS X market share is currently about 5%. Which is where it has been since, well, forever.
© 2002 – 2014, John Obeto for Blackground Media Unlimited
Follow @johnobeto