Over 200 people took the vQuiz to test their knowledge on how well they know the history of VMware through a series of 20 timed questions. I made the questions fairly challenging and I didn’t expect to see any person get all 20 questions correct and that was mostly the case. In fact I may have made it a bit too challenging as more than half the people who took the quiz got 10 or less answers correct. There was one very obscure question in particular that I was confident almost nobody would get correct. Below are the results and answers of the quiz to help educate everyone on history of VMware. Scroll down to the end to see the people who scored the highest and won the Amazon gift cards.
All future quiz’s will have sponsors and better prizes, if you are interested in sponsoring a themed vQuiz (i.e. storage, performance, VVols, cloud, backups, etc…) reach out to me and let me know. Sponsored quiz’s will feature a mix of general questions specific to the topic and some related to the sponsor.
Question Answer % Correct Comments
What year was VMware founded in?
1998 71% Remember the 20 year anniversary this year!
What release was the High Availability feature introduced in? Virtual Center 2.5 45% #2 answer was vCenter Server 4.0 (28%)
What was the original marketing name for the hypervisor that was abbreviated to ESX? Elastic Sky X 79% The question most people got correct
What year was the first VMworld held? 2004 49% In San Diego, CA at the Hyatt Convention Center, was the size of a VMUG UserCon back then (1,400)
Who was VMware's co-founder and chief scientist? Mendel Rosenblum 49% Thought more people would get this correct, #2 answer was Stephen Herrod (16%)
The vSphere product name was introduced in what new release? ESX 4.0 & vCenter 4.0 53% I remember this well as it was a big shock to everyone, was the successor to VI3
What year did EMC announce their intent to acquire VMware? 2003 12% Has it really been that long, #1 answer was 2007 (36%)
The very first VMworld was held in what US city? San Diego, CA 36% I didn't think many would know this as the 1st VMworld only had 1,400 attendees, #2 answer was San Fran (34%)
Before joining EMC and eventually becoming VMware's CEO, which company did Pat Gelsinger work at for 30 years? Intel 70% #2 answer was IBM (15%)
What was the very first virtualization product that VMware released in 1999? Workstation 56% Remember GSX (Server) that was the #2 answer (31%), GSX & ESX were released the same year (2001)
Who was VMware's Chief Marketing Officer before Robin Matlock filled the position in 2013 Rick Jackson 34% CMO is usually not that visible and it shows, #2 answer was Carl Eschenbach (32%), Rick Vanover (Veeam) was chosen 12%
VMware has had 3 CEO's over the years, who took over as CEO in 2008 succeeding Diane Greene Paul Maritz 66% Thought more would know this but it was a decade ago, #2 answer was Pat Gelsinger (19%) (huh?)
What was the original code name for the company before it was officially called VMware? Disco 16% I didn't know this either, I stumbled upon it in an obscure Stephen Herrod interview: "Our original code name for the company was Disco, because it was a cool idea from the 1970s that we wanted to bring back", most people answered Merlin (45%)
Who succeeded Stephen Herrod as VMware's CTO in 2014? Ben Fathi 23% His tenure as CTO was short 2014-2015 so not alot of people remembered him, Ray O'Farrell was the #1 answer (39%) who succeeded him in 2016
What year did VMware debut on the New York Stock Exchange with a first day closing value of $19.1 billion 2007 23% Answers were pretty evenly split between all 5 choices
What aquatic creature is a feature attraction in the VMware Promontory pond at their Palo Alto campus? Turtle 71% If you read my blog you would know this: http://vsphere-land.com/news/the-legendary-turtles-at-vmware-hq.html
The first VMworld Europe was held in February 2008 in which city? Cannes, France 30% It was in Cannes the first 2 years before moving to Copenhagen, #1 answer was Barcelona (40%)
VMware announced the general availability of Virtual SAN in what year? 2014 40% And hyper-converged madness ensued...
VMware acquired what software defined networking company in 2012? Nicira 74% #2 answer was AirWatch (12%)
VMware is celebrating this company anniversary milestone this year? 20th 82% If you knew the first answer or paid attention at VMworld you should have known this and it seems most people did
Winners of the vQuiz:
- 1st: 20 answers correct in 2:07 – David Marshal
- 2nd: 17 answers correct in 1:42 – Anthony Poh
- 3rd: 16 answers correct in 3:17 – Dan Raymond
