Financial Markets: VMware stock takes a massive hit, down about 9.5%!

Examiner carrying the numbers:

Mirroring the increases, VMware, Inc. (VMW) outpaced all value drops by falling approximately 7.25 percent, with Franklin Resources, Inc. (BEN) and The Charles Schwab Corporation (SCHW) dropped by 2.75 and 2.25 percent respectively.

The current stock is just above $ 70.

Google discussions are already talking about this phenomenon of the commoditization of the hypervisor (meaning ESX as far as VMware is concerned).

Some comments:

- the earnings were a large sign of what is to come for this stock -
the earnings were pretty much in line with what analysts
expected(ofcourse they beat estimates) earnings coming close to what
analysts expected showed that this stock was already aligning to
market fundamentals and would become affected normally by market
turbulence.

Is this a good investment? I would be very careful on jumping into it
now. Will it be like google? I don't think so. I use ESX and it's
awesome, but for the price and with the number of free versions of ESX
out there....it's a tough call. Will it be 200 this time next year?
I don't think so.

in reply:

A few weeks, ago a discussion like this would have been fired down
really hard. All I am hearing from this discussion is "Beware of
VMWare" - There's very strong competition that has built up very
very fast. VMWare doesn't even have to have the best product, they
just need to be the standard(which they are)
Think about the US dollar, strongest currency?
Think about Microsoft Windows, best OS?
Think about Oil, best way of running cars?

more on buying hen it dips:

I am looking at VMW for a long term. It has a great product, has been
solid in IT for 7+ years, and is now been getting into the Apple
market with a product that runs Windows on Macs very nicely. Windows
has been lagging lately, especially with Vista, and Mac and VMW are
poised to conquer. Regarding competitors, Windows is loosing ground
with IT converting to Linux when possible, and others just entering
the market.

Some opinions...

let me ask few billion dollar questions:

1. do you know whats the upper limit for VMware virtualization
products?? or do you know who are the actual paying customers/users of
vmw products??

2. do you know how much money they have made so far in 2007, and how
much they will be making in 2008??

there is a good news though, VMW has a huge short interest and very
low float, i am expecting a huge pop (10-15%) on any good day due to
short covering.

i think vmw has only around 20 million or so stock trading in public
but it has almost 11 million short interest.

Whole discussion here