The mainframe for the 21st century

"Virtualization is the mainframe for the 21st century," said Stephen Herrod, VMware's CTO.

When I read that quote, I did a double take. Throughout my entire career, the mainframe was something to laugh at, to denigrade, to replace. But now, it seems like everything old is new again. Everyone wants to be the new mainframe. Here is Larry Ellison talking about his plans post acquisition of Sun:

Once we own Sun, we’ll be able to plan and synchronize new features from silicon to software, just like IBM and the other big system suppliers. We want to work with Fujitsu to design advanced features into the SPARC microprocessor aimed at improving Oracle database performance. In my opinion, this will enable SPARC Solaris open-system mainframes and servers to challenge IBM’s dominance in the data center.

Viva la dialectic!