Version: 2008

Comments on: How big is Microsoft threat to VMware?

At VMworld in Las Vegas, the talk was all about the free release of Redmond's hypervisor product. Plus, another executive departs the virtualization software company.

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by The_Decider September 21, 2008 1:06 PM PDT
The VM is free but what it runs on is far from free and excessively expensive. Not too mention bloated.

The idea that someone would want to run a VM inside windows is a ludicrous notion and only the truly clueless will be attracted to it. If you are running a server with lots of VM's and the base OS is only there to support the VM's, why slow everything down with MS crap?

Like everything else MS has tried in the past few years, this shows how hopelessly out of touch they are. Running around shouting 'me too' without understanding the reasoning behind it and the inability to properly implement is precisely why MS is losing ground and is completely irrelevant to the march of progress.
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by Seaspray0 September 21, 2008 3:01 PM PDT
Isn't the competition between microsoft and vmware a good thing? Don't you still have a choice on how you wish to virtualize an environment? If you want to choose vmware, then feel free to do so. Others may wish to choose the hypervisor and they are free to do so. You are always claiming one of the great features of linux is that it's free. How quickly you can change your tune here. Also explain how microsoft is losing ground in an arena where they didn't even exist a year ago. You can't. All we get is the typical decider rhetoric.
by The_Decider September 21, 2008 5:23 PM PDT
I choose neither, I use other VM solutions.

This is as much competition to VMWare as the zune is to the iPod.

linux + vmware < windows server + their crap VM.

I see you still have no reading comprehension. The comment is about MS as a whole, not in a single market. MS is losing ground absolutely everywhere which is why they are desperately trying to break into new markets(VM, supercomputers(which themselves are dropping in favor of clusters, which overwhelmingly run Linux).

It is not rhetoric to say MS is in decline and irrelevant. That is simple fact.
by Vegaman_Dan September 21, 2008 9:12 PM PDT
Seasrpay0:

Yes, please remember that The_Decider's rants are all on his religious holy war against all things Microsoft. He has no actual facts or reason behind his comments other than his pure unadulterated hatred and bigotry.

You're right, it's pretty typical for him.
by Penguinisto September 22, 2008 6:49 AM PDT
To be fair, ESX and Virtual Infrastructure ain't cheap either.

That said, ESX is very light and VERY fast. It has a very nice pile of tools that make managing a virtual cluster very easy. Hyper-V can't even do full clustering yet (judging by actual tests, by colleagues at Intel no less).

When/if Hyper-V gets the same kind of tools and the same performance, then maybe it'll be a threat. Otherwise I see more people using Xen at this point.
by catch23 September 22, 2008 6:51 AM PDT
>>It is not rhetoric to say MS is in decline and irrelevant. That is simple fact.
Sure, whatever. Record sales, record profits. Even Vista outsells everything but XP, by a HUGE margin.
What a joke. I don't know what world you live in, but it has nothing to do with reality.

Just ask Netscape. Or Novel.
by The_Decider September 22, 2008 8:20 AM PDT
Record sales if you forget that MS fudges numbers. Those sales count XP upgrades as well.

They are irrelevant because Vista is a bad copy of Linux and OSX. Followers are never relevant.

No facts? Just because you get a weekly talking points memo from the shill department and can't form your own opinion doesn't mean the rest of us are the same way. Your time would be better spent on actually learning about computers.

This is a bloated system that is overpriced and no one with a brain will use because 100% free(as in freedom and beer) solutions that perform better then this pile of crap. VMWare is years ahead of this crap as well. Again, this is another me-too solution searching for a problem.

This is like MS's futile attempts to beat Google and the iPod.
by Vegaman_Dan September 22, 2008 2:51 PM PDT
The_Decider wrote:

"No facts? Just because you get a weekly talking points memo from the shill department and can't form your own opinion doesn't mean the rest of us are the same way. Your time would be better spent on actually learning about computers."

And yet when people ask you to list the facts to back up your claims, you never seem to respond. Interesting.

I might refer you to some very wise advice that you would do well to take to heart:

"Your time would be better spent on actually learning about computers."
by sflocal September 21, 2008 1:24 PM PDT
MS is employing the same tactic it has always used when it experiences difficulty penetrating a market. Why compete when they can give it for free? If they could, they would just integrate it directly into the OS like they did with IE years back before the government clamped down on them. Perhaps they will since this is a server product and not a desktop product.

Eventually they will have enough people on board that care only about price and not quality that they will be a force in the end.

What a shame.
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by The_Decider September 21, 2008 5:25 PM PDT
I don't share your pessimism. There are very few companies that blindly choose MS anymore. Most are slowly moving away from them. Too slowly, but the enterprise space moves slow.
by Vegaman_Dan September 21, 2008 9:16 PM PDT
The Decder wrote:
"Most are slowly moving away from them. "

Okay, I'll take you up on that challenge. Most means more than 50% of every company / business on the planet. Please list those companies that have converted. Please be thorough and document your sources. As there are millions of businesses on the planet, I expect you'll be busy contacting all of them for the information, but unless you want to look like an uninformed troll, then you have no choice but to defend your comments.

Please list these companies. All of them. Or face ridicule and mockery earned by your comments.
by The_Decider September 22, 2008 8:22 AM PDT
Dan, you are such an idiot.

With very few exception nearly every big company is slowly adding another solutions at the expense of MS. That means they are moving away from MS.
by Vegaman_Dan September 22, 2008 2:56 PM PDT
The_Decider wrote:

"With very few exception nearly every big company is slowly adding another solutions at the expense of MS. That means they are moving away from MS."

When asked to present your facts, you fail to give them, instead hiding behind generalities without any backing of actual fact or data. If the only information you give is made up by you, then that doesn't say much for your validity.

In the future, please use real information instead of making it up. You will look less like a troll.
by Penguinisto September 22, 2008 3:22 PM PDT
@sflocal:

No worries - Xen is $0.00, and has more capabilities. Hyper-V can;t even hold up in an enterprise environment (yet - this may change).

Also, enterprise customers are under different parameters than the users of, say, a web browser. If the boss spent tends of thousands of bucks getting and installing a VMWare-based solution, what makes you think s/he's simply going to cast aside all that investment in a solution that isn't nearly as capable and doesn't have even the smallest of comparable toolkits? From a sysadmin perspective, even if Hyper-V was all that and a bag of chips, there's no justification for simply tossing out all the investment without one hell of a return.

Linux had similar problems when it first showed up - then it got the tools to complement it (Apache, MySQL, etc), and the benefits became large enough to justify phasing it in as new projects arose, and as old projects got replaced.

@ Vegaman Dan: Err, you do know that...

* HP is looking to add an alternative OS entirely in their lineup.
* Dell is selling Ubuntu machines to consumers and has openly pined for a chance to sell OSX preinstalls.
* Acer sells laptops preloaded with Linux or simply "naked".
* IBM slapped Microsoft in the face 8 years ago and began selling/marketing Linux as its main OS of choice.
* Asus sells Linux preloaded on the majority of the Eee models they've sold.

10 years ago, none of these folks (including IBM) would even think of doing that for fear that MSFT would retaliate. Now they do it openly. That pretty much defines "moving away" to most folks...
by professionaladventurer September 21, 2008 3:28 PM PDT
I use VM on my Mac to run Windows. I don't see MS offing a similar product.
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by Penguinisto September 22, 2008 6:50 AM PDT
You won't (although you used to - they once had VirtualPC for OSX).
by getwired September 21, 2008 4:47 PM PDT
Microsoft is consistently 2-3 YEARS behind the rest of the virtualization industry, with less full-featured products - albeit free all around. VMware is in no imminent danger from Microsoft, unless they stand still.
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by HighwayHome September 21, 2008 4:55 PM PDT
The X-Box 360 is a great gaming machine. What does that have to do with this article? Absolutely nothing, except that Microsoft needs to focus their attention to gamers, because they already have the PC market in the bag...
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by The_Decider September 21, 2008 5:19 PM PDT
Hardly, when the cats they forced into the bag are fleeing out of the many holes. AKA MS is losing market share on the desktop.

This is about servers, where MS only leads in exploits.
by kksing September 21, 2008 8:54 PM PDT
Anti-MS rhetoric aside, this is a huge threat to VMWare and anyone who brushes it off will go the way of Netscape.

The biggest barrier of entry for Virtualisation at the entreprise level (that's where the money is. VMWare and MS are not interested in your home Virtual servers, at least, not at the moment) is that VMWare software costs a lot of money. While running costs vis a vis savings are attractive, there is a fairly steep set-up cost that needs to be paid.

While there is a free VMWare Server, it missing too many of the key entreprise features to even evaluate the benefits of virtualisation.

MS's free hypervisor could fit into this niche nicely. It offers enterprises a look into the door FOC. Once they are hooked, and it looks like it works, you better believe they will start asking if they should even bother to pay money for a product, even if there are more features which they might/might not use or it looks prettier.
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by exmsft September 22, 2008 7:33 AM PDT
I think you missed the memo about ESX becoming free. VMware is ahead again.
by brenalexd September 22, 2008 12:45 PM PDT
The one thing that everyone here seems to be forgetting is that VMWare not only offers its VMware Server product for free, but also offers its ESXi hypervisor for free. This is the same proven, robust hypervisor that the VI3 platform is built on. So the argument that Microsoft addresses a market segment that VMware does not is completely inaccurate. Also, let's be honest here, Hyper-V is not free, you must purchase a Windows Server license in order to get it. VMware offers a TRULY free hypervisor, not to mention one that is way more robust and proven than Hyper-V. If anyone out there is interested in "a look into the door FOC" then go download ESXi from VMware. Even without the advanced features of VI3, ESXi alone has capabilities Hyper-V can't touch. Bottom line, is do a little research, don't fall victim to the smoke a mirrors act that Microsoft is so very good at.
by Penguinisto September 22, 2008 3:24 PM PDT
ESXi is free. The initial costs of VI are offset by the mountain of tools and benefits you get out of a solution that works in pretty much any situation with very little work required.
by strevoir September 22, 2008 1:44 AM PDT
there are manyof ppl using Win Server
I can see the huge potential of V-Hype
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by Penguinisto September 22, 2008 7:00 AM PDT
Hyper-V can't do full clustering yet (it can do it in some cases, but fails miserably under full enterprise conditions). It doesn't have anywhere near the toolkit. The management OS is still too bloated (as in - how many VM's you can run on the same hardware before it bogs down).

Free (as in beer) is nice, but Xen is free (as in both beer and speech), and gives me better performance to boot. This is probably why the article should have read Xen as the competitor instead of VMWare, truth be told...

@strevoir: the Guest OS is irrelevant. I use quite a number of Windows servers on top of VMWare ESX and Xen. Each (Hyper-V and ESX) has a 'management' OS. ESX' uses Linux (but you can do nearly all of your management through a client-side GUI toolkit, or you can ssh into it), which keeps out of the way. Hyper-V uses a Windows OS (which you pretty much have to use either at the console or with Remote Desktop).

@kksing: In regards to "While there is a free VMWare Server, it missing too many of the key entreprise features to even evaluate the benefits of virtualisation."

Problem is, Hyper-V is missing them too - in its full product. This may change, but I wouldn;t bet the farm on it.

Also, Netscape is a bad parallel - Web Browsers are $0.00 - VM tech usually means that the client has invested tens of thousands of dollars (and often way more if it's a big installation), and isn't about to simply chuck it all out the window on a whim.

/P
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by brenalexd September 22, 2008 12:47 PM PDT
The one thing that everyone here seems to be forgetting is that VMWare not only offers its VMware Server product for free, but also offers its ESXi hypervisor for free. This is the same proven, robust hypervisor that the VI3 platform is built on. So the argument that Microsoft addresses a market segment that VMware does not is completely inaccurate. Also, let's be honest here, Hyper-V is not free, you must purchase a Windows Server license in order to get it. VMware offers a TRULY free hypervisor, not to mention one that is way more robust and proven than Hyper-V. If anyone out there is interested in "a look into the door FOC" then go download ESXi from VMware. Even without the advanced features of VI3, ESXi alone has capabilities Hyper-V can't touch. Bottom line, is do a little research, don't fall victim to the smoke a mirrors act that Microsoft is so very good at.
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