I was reading GigaOm's Barb Darrow's post on the 5 changes that VMware is going through. Barb's closing point.

The company’s aggressive goal is to get enterprise data centers — which Gartner estimates are about 60 percent virtualized now — to the 90 percent mark. Servers are just the tip of the iceberg there. Networking gear — switches, routers — and storage all need to make that leap as well.

Got me thinking. Maybe part of VMware/EMC's strategy is to transition VMware into a management tool for servers, storage, and network. Virtualization is simply a method to get control over each of these areas. If you have control you can manage.

If VMware's vision is fulfilled it would seem that all the rest of the management tools would be obsolete. Or at least in the past vs. an environment that moves at the speed of VM deployment. VMware doesn't care what OS you run on your Servers, Network, or Storage as long as it runs on their virtualization layer which they can manage and control.

Do you want to be a VMware shop? It may be too late for many to make a choice.