  Massive gravitational microlensing programs were begun about a decade ago as
a means to search for compact baryonic dark matter in the Galaxy, but before
the first events were detected the technique was also proposed as a means of
detecting extra-solar planets in our Galaxy. Current microlensing planet
searches, which have been underway for four years, are sensitive to jovian-mass
planets orbiting a few to several AU from their parent Galactic stars. Within
two years, sufficient data should be in hand to characterize or meaningfully
constrain the frequency of massive planets in this range of parameter space,
nicely complementing information about planets at smaller orbital radii now
being provided by radial velocity searches. In principle, the technique could
be pushed to smaller planetary masses, but only if a larger number of faint
microlensed sources can be monitored with higher precision and temporal
sampling. The VST on Paranal, with spectroscopic follow-up with the VLT, may be
the ideal instrument for such an ambitious program.
