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your main competitor is a giant like Microsoft Corp., the battle for
market share requires intellectual strength, do-or-die determination,
and the creative capacity of Picasso. VMware Inc., a relatively small
virtual-infrastructure software manufacturer in Palo Alto, CA, brought
all three characteristics to bear on its first three-day user
conference, VMworld 2004 in San Diego.
Recognized
by customers as a renegade, cutting-edge technology company, VMware
devised a new user conference to educate more than 1,600 attendees
about its new offerings and to strengthen the sense of community and
cult-like following that had developed among its customers.
The conference’s biggest hospitality event, then, had to foster the
seven-year-old company’s reputation as a rebel and a technology
developer that was completely in tune with and devoted to its customers
— an 80-percent male group of hard-core techies.
“VMware wanted people to leave the hospitality event saying, ‘only
VMware would have the guts to throw this kind of party — Microsoft
would be too scared,’” says Elle Chan, executive producer and co-owner
of Trademark Event Productions Inc., the San Francisco-based corporate
event planning and management company that created the event.
To that end, Trademark and VMware created the “Rise of the Virtual
Machines,” a hospitality event centered on a four-hour, combat robot
fight to the death.
The robot competition took place in a 100-by-100-foot room in a San
Diego cruise-ship terminal, filled with bleacher seating, a
30-by-30-foot covered war zone surrounded by heavy Lexan, and a
triage area where ‘bot builders reattached appendages.
Nineteen robot teams, which regularly compete with ComBots and in the International ROBOlympics/RoboGames, battled it out in one-on-one
matches that lasted three minutes each. A boxing-style announcer called
the bouts and entertained attendees between rounds. Overhead, video
monitors offered instant replays and close-ups of the action.
Outside the arena, the event offered various food stations and
projected video games for those who needed a break from the raucous
battlefield.
Unlike a typical rock band or comedian, the robot combat encouraged
interaction among attendees, who banded together to cheer for their
teams. More than 1,000 conference attendees participated in the event,
staying an average of two hours each — every minute of which screamed
“renegade, cutting-edge technology company” and whispered, “Microsoft
would never do this.” 
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