Return to the dark side?

Microsoft’s Virtualisation Strategy concerns me.

We’re about to see the release of Hyper-V. Around this release will the usual amount of marketing and razzmatazz that Microsoft usual bring to what is a major release for them. Of course, Microsoft are once again late to the party.
VMWare being the undoubted leader in this area and we ourselves invested in a large VMWare virtualisation infrastructure for our customers because VI3 is a really great product that has benefits we can pass on to our customers.
We are a technology lead company, flexible enough to be able to change direction and supplier if something better comes along that
allows us to give provide a better service or gives more value.

We’ll be sticking with VMWare for a while I think.

Hyper-V doesn’t give us anything that we haven’t already got and I think most companies will feel the same way. Understanding that they have a new product that they need to push aggressively, Microsoft are going full out to claim some market share and it’s this that causes me some concern.

If you buy Windows Server 2008 Enterprise edition you’ll receive 4 free licenses to run Hyper-V instances of Server 2008 on that server, unlimited if your budget can stretch to Datacentre edition. This is wonderfully generous of them, giving away all those licenses, and will certainly help IT departments in consolidating servers as well as moving over to Windows Server 2008.
However, doesn’t this feel a little like their buying their way into this market?

Are you getting that 90’s Browser Wars feeling again?

I found myself at a Microsoft Analysts Seminar recently where they showed comments from various high level Exec’s (including Ballmer) stating that Virtualisation is their Number 1 priority. I find this level of focus a little frightening considering past history.
More competition in this important area should be welcomed, right? VMWare have really had this area to themselves for too long but I’d like to see more competition from a technology vs technology perspective rather than cost. But that easy for me to say – Budget holders around the country would maybe see things differently !