Should I be worried?

I attended Channel Expo this week at the NEC in Birmingham. I'm afraid the show wasn't quite what I had expected. Lots of tiny computer companies trying to flog laptop cases and "funkily" designed PC housing, meanwhile trying to fend off the mass of unemployed losers taking time out from Jeremy Kyle and trying to outdo each other in the amount of freebies they can bag from the stands. Stands that companies, like ourselves, have paid many thousands of pounds for. Can anyone tell me what it is that drives these sort of people to spend hours traipsing round trade shows picking up pens just because they're free?

COMPUTERLINKS, as mentioned, had a presence there but fortunately I wasn't roped in to do stand duty - I did pity my esteemed colleagues trying to explain the ins and outs of distribution to hairy geeks from "Chris's Computers" and the like. (And yes, that is a real company, I saw the Director. And he's called Chris. I'm guessing he also covers reception, sales, pre-sales, technical support, marketing and finance too.)

Still, my real reason for attending the show was to listen to the Microsoft Virtualisation seminar, which I did. And, to be perfectly honest, I thought the chap from Microsoft, who was excellent, had simply taken the Citrix slides and put them into a Microsoft template. See what I mean? I had heard it all before and I must admit, it did make me think.

Microsoft and Citrix, as is well-known, have been close partners for years, a few reasons for which I have explained in the blog below entitled "VMWare proving the doubters wrong. For now." But Microsoft aren't just competing with XenServer, they now compete across the board.

Terminal Services = Xenapp
Softgrid = Citrix Streaming Server
Hyper-V = XenServer
Windows Vista Enterprise Centralised Desktop = XenDesktop
Intelligent Application Gateway = Access Gateway

Add in MOM, SMS and the other management-type stuff that MS have re-branded and the whole solution looks pretty impressive to me. If it does everything they say it will, it's an enormous threat to Citrix in my eyes.

There is quite an amusing term I have heard Citrites use when describing these sort of situations: they say it's "healthy co-opetition". With partners like Microsoft, who needs enemies?!

Having based my financial future on Citrix, at least in the short-term, should I be worried?