Ballmer jabs at VMware

One of the topics I didn't get a chance to write about during last night's Churchill Club speech was Steve Ballmer's comments on virtualization.

Here's a ZDNet video with Ballmer talking about Microsoft's "opportunity to democratize virtualization."

For those who want to skip to the money quote, here it is:

"If you want virtualization on 80 percent of servers instead of 5 percent of servers, you better not charge three times as much as the price of the server for the virtualization," Ballmer said. "For certain high-end applications, the approach that VMware has used is a perfectly good approach, but it's not an approach that is going to lead to virtualization of a high percentage of servers."

ZDNet posted other videos as well, including Ballmer on the economy and on competition with Google.

[jabberwolf]

Nice but MS's VM isnt quite the same and doesnt have the quick HA (high availability) that vmware does.

Sorry the "lift" that hypervisor does isnt quite the same when it uses native network and video drivers as well as others. You basically need close to the same hardware if you want HA.

So why not take alot out of the cost for HA and just use something like Doubltake instead.

The cost is still worth it for VMware. If there are servers you dont want on VM, then I'd use MS but grudgingly.

[Penguinisto]

Hint to Ballmer: You're not paying for the hypervisor (you can get that for free) - you're paying for the tools.

/P

[humanssssss]

Price will naturally come down if there is a VIABLE COMPETITOR to VMWare. I guessed Ballmer never understood the definition of quality. Consumers are smarter now. They know the ROI of paying a higher price of quality to get a better return than paying a lower price getting lesser return. Using Microsoft software add more technical support cost and other hidden costs that end up costing more than the initial price of the solution.

The more Ballmer insinuate the intelligence of the public, the more egg will be on his face.

Because if it comes to price, KVM beats Microsoft hands down. I'm the guy that deploy over 150 VMs using KVM as my solution.

What's that about price?!?? hrmm.....

[jinx101a]

VMWare is the clear leader but you can't discount Microsoft, even if Ballmer is slimy. I'm not convinced that VMWare has a higher ROI from what I've seen, I've seen both MS and VMWare virtualazation servers setup and to be honest they've both required similiar amounts of time in maintence. I prefer VMWare but to pretend Microsoft's software is horid just because it's Microsoft is self serving bias that gets tiring.

[philpacker]

Amazing comment from the company that charges way to much for crapware that they exploit because of a monolopy position.

[ewelch]

I'm surprised anyone takes the man seriously after his wildly inaccurate description of the iPhone and his speactacularly wrong prediction about what kind of market share it will get.

The man has no connection with reality because he's lived too long in the Microsoft Redmond echo chamber.

[imacpwr]

Isn't this the case of a kettle calling the pot black...??

[Johnny02110]

VMWare has products that include enterprise-level features for high-end workloads, mid-tier products for mid-tier workloads, and even free products for lower end workloads. Microsoft has one product that's not nearly as mature as VMWare's free offering and they don't even have a way to manage it yet! (Yes, I know SCUMM is in beta, but there's no way I'm using that in production until it's been service packed at least a couple of times.)

Ballmer is amusing as always, but in reality is seems that VMWare is covering all of the bases while Microsoft is still swinging at the plate.....

[tundraboy]

You people questioning Ballmer's ability to lead Microsoft: For your information he is eminently qualified to be Microsoft's CEO.

Don't you idiots know that he was Bill Gates' college buddy?

[Ian_Joyner]

People just don't believe Ballmer's spin anymore. Only SB believes is own BS.

[virtman]

> "you better not charge three times as much as the price of the server for the virtualization,"

Wow! Does he know how much his company charges for a single copy of Windows 2008 server?

http://www.amazon.com/Microsoft-Windows-Server-Enterprise-Client/dp/B0011F193A/ref=sr_1_8?ie=UTF8&s=software&qid=1222474346&sr=1-8

[neil23in]

Balmer,

If you want everyone to continue using wiindows, you have to keep the price to match with linux editions. or better make it open source. I am sure you will have hard time to get developers (crappy code)

I just tried Hyper V. What a crap!

performance of qemu is better than microsoft's hyper v.

so, why to pay 3700$ for crap! vmware ESXi is free!