VMworld EMEA, IPExpo, The ExecEvent, Citrix Synergy, oh my!

This month (October 2011) there are a slew of conferences on virtualization and cloud technologies being held in Europe. The question becomes which to attend! If you are in the United States, this could be expensive considering the current Euro to Dollar exchange rate but if you are already in Europe one of these events is well worth attending, each has there own take and focus.  But after the success of VMworld US, is there anything more to announce?
I believe there is, and at these conferences you will see quite a few announcements. Interesting is that there are 3 major conferences and 2 smaller ones in the next three weeks and a new conference for vendor executives. Each with their own focus and set of announcements. There is plenty to announce coming from VMware, Microsoft, Citrix, as well as the other virtualization and cloud vendors. Some held something back for the other conferences while others just had new developments that need to be announced.

	VMworld EMEA will have its set of announcements based on VMware’s latest developments and those items that are now ready 1 month after VMworld US. Some claim there will not be anything new, but I believe there will be. Timing is after all, everything. (Copenhagen, Denmark)
	Geared towards the same crew as VMworld EMEA and Citrix Synergy, but is a vendor neutral conference. There will be quite a few companies showing at all events so expect joint announcements coming out. (London, United Kingdom)
	Geared towards vendor executives but with a twist, the presenters are mostly end users or those who work directly with end users. This runs alongside as IPExpo. (London, United Kingdom)
	Intensive training on virtualization and cloud geared towards Microsoft products. (Frankfurt, Germany)
	The week after VMworld EMEA and focused towards Citrix products and ecosystem. In the cloud and virtual environments Citrix has been silently and slowly catching up to VMware. (Barcelona, Spain)

As you can see each of these upcoming conferences shares something different or targeted to a specific product or group of people. Each of the three major hypervisor vendors have a conference where they will discuss quite a bit more than their own products but more about their ecosystems specifically their own products, while IP Expo being vendor neutral could discuss the entire ecosystem.
The month of October is crowded with conferences on very good subjects, and if possible I would find your way to the events, it is a chance to meet experts in the field, kick the tires on products, network, and get your questions answered. It is not about the announcements to be made, you do not need to attend any of these to read about those, but it is about networking and getting to see products you would not normally see.
Yet if you are an executive for a vendor and wish to find out what end users are discussing directly, then The ExecEvent is for you. This is one conference dedicated to improving the overall ecosystem but discussing what is missing and what could be added to those who can make the decisions.
The real shame is that it is hard to choose which ones to go to!