VMblog:  As a VMworld 2018 sponsor, how can people find you this year? 

Jason Smith:  Our booth number is 2126 this year, in exactly the same place as we were placed last year. As VMworld is a strategic show for us, we always like to send our ‘big guns', so expect to see many of our senior executives there. However, we appreciate the technical bias of the delegates, so our attending team will be able to answer any and all deeply technical questions!

VMblog:  Is there anything unique about this year's booth setup?  Do you have a theme? 

Jason Smith:  We've enhanced our "Dare2Compare" initiative and are offering the ability to win $100 in our Liquidware Challenge.  By putting your desktop environment to test by choosing a challenge for us to solve. If we can't you win $100 and if we do solve it, then you become the Desktop Hero - a win-win! You can take the challenge here in advance of VMworld, or come chat to us about it at the event. 

VMblog:  Can you give readers a few reasons why your product or service is considered unique?

Jason Smith:  Liquidware has been complementing VMware infrastructure since our inception in 2009. As many vendors attempt to produce similar functionality - either as standalone products or bundled in with their platform - we continue to innovate and lead the field in our area of expertise. As the leading, independent, platform agnostic vendor, we create solutions to better serve end user computing users and enable IT folks to cost effectively manage their desktop infrastructure - whether that be virtual, physical or cloud based. This is fundamentally why Liquidware is unique.

VMblog:  Why should a VMworld attendee add you to their MUST SEE list?

Jason Smith:  If a delegate is responsible, in any way, for Windows desktops within their organization they should definitely stop by our booth and chat to us.  From managing users, to visibility and monitoring, to OS migration, to application layering, Liquidware has a vast array of functionality to enable effective workspace environment management, all from one vendor. 

Our UEM solution, ProfileUnity, is designed for all Windows workspaces - physical, virtual, cloud, and RDSH - with policy, profile and security management in one solution. Integrated is our FlexApp application layering solution (which is also available as a standalone solution), delivering applications instantly. 

Finally, our in the guest user experience monitoring and visibility solution, Stratusphere UX, has been deployed in many enterprises as its metrics supports image and infrastructure design for optimum desktop environment performance. 

VMblog:  Can you give VMblog readers a sneak peek as to what you will be showing off at your booth this year?  What should attendees expect to see and hear at your booth?

Jason Smith:  We'll be showing off the latest versions of all products and you'll see what's newsworthy and new in our booth. This past spring, ProfileUnity delivered the industry's first ability to natively save and restore profiles from object-based storage including Azure, Google Cloud, and Amazon AWS S3 clouds. FlexApp will soon feature a similar capability for storing application layers to native cloud storage and we'll also show off at VMworld. We'll also be showing some new features in our newly architected Stratusphere UX.  The solution has recently undergone a number of scalabiity and other enterprise-class enhancements. New capabilities include process optimization, increased display protocol metrics around latency and jitter and an all-new log visibility feature. 

VMblog:  How does your company and product fit within the VMware ecosystem?

Jason Smith:  Liquidware solutions have been VMware certified and around 50% of our deployments are on top of VMware. While VMware has made investments into their own UEM and app layering solutions, customers require enterprise grade solutions that enable cost-effective desktop transformation. Liquidware's expertise is deeply rooted in physical, virtual and cloud solutions and we enable our customers to support hybrid desktop environments, no matter what platform(s) they choose to deploy.

VMblog:  How many times have you sponsored VMworld before?  And what keeps you coming back?

Jason Smith:  This is our tenth VMworld! We've been sponsoring VMworld since 2009, when we officially launched the company. As mentioned before, it is a key strategic show for us in our annual events calendar with many Liquidware deployments being on VMware. It is a chance to meet with current customers and partners, as well as evangelize our solutions to new companies not yet familiar with Liquidware. 

VMblog:  What would you say to prospective attendees who are thinking about attending VMworld but aren't sure if it's worth it or not?

Jason Smith:  These events are not inexpensive to attend - either for delegates or sponsors - but the pay back can be enormous for both.  I know of folks whose careers have flourished because of a chance meeting at VMworld and many meet their Twitter followers, and those they follow, for the first time IRL.  VMworld provides a "Convince your Boss" letter, which is helpful to a degree, but ultimately the learning and educational opportunities are in abundance. Not just from VMware, but from vendor partners such as us, and also from your peers.  Like anything in life, you get out of it what you put in. There is no other event where you can have such condensed and comprehensive VMware associated learning opportunities under one roof.

VMblog:  What do you hope to come away with from exhibiting at VMworld?

Jason Smith:  It never ceases to amaze me how busy our booth always is. Bearing in mind VMware and, therefore VMworld, is still pretty server and data center centric. However, EUC is getting on their agenda more and more, so being our tenth VMworld, I am sure we'll meet many attendees with desktop transformation challenges that we can assist with. We're very much looking forward to discussing - and solving - those issues!

VMblog:  Do you have any tips for first time attendees of VMworld that you'd like to share?

Jason Smith:  There are a plethora of blog posts out there providing solid advice for attendees, but my main advice for delegates is to network with other attendees. VMworld is a great community of individuals that are all keen to share experiences, so spend time in the hang space and definitely make time to visit the Solutions Exchange!

We've been a long-standing supporter of the VMware User Group (VMUG) and they will have a booth in the Solutions Exchange, pay them a visit and sign up to be a member, if you're not already. Being a VMUG member provides many opportunities to get to know your peers both at VMworld and at local user group meetings throughout the year. 

VMblog:  Is your company throwing or involved with any type of party during the week of the event?  If open to the public, can you share the details? 

Jason Smith:  We're hosting an unforgettable evening at Charlie Palmer Steak restaurant in the Mandalay Bay on Monday, August 27. You'll need an invitation to attend and tickets are limited. So if you've got a desktop project that is 500 or more users and we can help please feel free to reach out so we can get you included in the invitation. Tickets are first come first serve and you can reach out to us at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. to request yours and tell us about your desktop project.

Along with NVIDIA, we're also pleased to be hosting the third Inside Track invite only event for EUC influencers and thought leaders. While it's not open to the public, if any of your readers are bloggers, industry analysts or thought leaders, they should contact us via Twitter for a possible invite @InsideTrackEUC. We held our inaugural event at VMworld last year and held our second one at Synergy this May, so we're very excited for this third event, where we're gonna ‘mix it up' a little with the event being held at TopGolf! It's more a networking event, with invitees having attended a webinar a week or so before VMworld.