VMware CEO Paul Maritz admits licensing will change to a consumption model

In a questions and answers session at VMworld in Copenhagen, Paul Maritz, chief executive office at VMWare, responded to a question I posed on the recent, unpopular change to VMWare licensing. He said, "We are not the only actor in this space. There are truly monster devices in the x86 space, which go beyond a zSeries mainframe [in terms of performance]. Today customers are putting 40 , 50 or even 100 VMs on a single server. Moore's Law is benefiting our customers. Customers can put more VMs on a machine."

Maritz believes the whole industry will have to adress the licensing of virtual machines on increasingly powerful hardware. He said, "The industry will have to move to a consumption based model."

The question is whether VMware will change its licensing. Maritz said, "Who knows if we'll have to change our licensing, but in 10 years from now, things will have changed quite radically..