They were attending the vendor's Partner Exchange 2012 event in Sydney to hear about the company's vision and goals.

VMware global strategic alliances vice-president, Parag Patel, said mainframes marked the first era of computing with a centralised IT model where users were not empowered.

"The PC/client server marked a fundamental shift, and the Cloud now promises another set of fundamental shifts in architecture, usage patterns, and IT approach," he said.

He also saw the shifting landscape being influenced by delivery architectures, devices, applications, and work style

"What business are now looking for is an architecture for ubiquitous service delivery, as they have had to contend with the traditional IT footprint that consisted of multiple operating environments that acted as pillars of isolation," Patel said.