For what its worth I’m not advocating the use of Vmware or Xen, I don’t use either. This however is a big caution sign on how quickly things change and how quickly things fall out of favor. As for Xen — it comes integrated into Redhat Fedora Core 5, by default.

So if a 500lb gorilla like Microsoft can get displaced so fast what does this mean for your business? You need to be aware of how you treat your customers, your partners and your vendors.

-Vlad

Do you ever get a feeling that there is just no sense of “strategy” at Microsoft?

I mean, they pick a fight with Netscape and win by giving IE away for free.

Then they pick a fight with Real/Apple by giving away Media Player for free.

But what now?
Open Office?
Vmware?
Linux?

They are going against solutions where the price is already nil. Microsoft alternative is often bloated and requires a ton of CPU and memory. They are betting that people will choose Microsoft because of the features…

HELLO????

Knock. Knock. Knock.

You didn’t beat Netscape on features. You didn’t beat Real on features. You beat them on price. And now you’re going up against free. How do you imagine to make money by giving the house away for free? Services? I guess there is room for another IBM
Great insightful article Vlad! You really raised my heart pressure with this!

/rant off.

Makes ya wonder if they’ll realize they are doing the same with R2?

Either way I’m glad I’m not the only one concerned with the direction my biggest partner is taking.

R2? You kidding me — they will milk the cow until its dry.

Microsoft lost the virtualization game, move along, nothing to see here, sorry.

There is no replacing windows… but everything else is going to slowly taper away. Everyone can see the writing on the wall.

But what did VMWare:

VMWare GSX was never indented to be used on production systems. A joke, they never mentioned it.

VMWare Server ist now free, but no cpu limitation is possible. So its useless.

VMware ESX is really to expensive.

Xen is fine for hosting virtualized Linux - but miles away from the stability of vmware and virtual server.

So Virtual Server is fine for me - I dont need any 64-bit guest support. And if Vista/Longhorn is supported in Virtual Server for us everything is fine.

Just my 2 cents.

I just attended a VMWARE user group yesterday…our company uses ESX…what a great product…leaps ahead of the virtual server from MS. A rep from Vizioncore was there touting their partnership with VM and the new frontiers that are appearing. MS cannot hold reign over all aspects of technology…

I have also been playing with VISTA and OFFICE 12…the training curve and hardware increase overhead will probably stave most companies from upgrading…and so far I see no real benefit other than all the eye candy to upgrade to vista.

Microsoft does not have a competitive plan that was made evident recently when they shuffled their management deck. Look at the minimicrosoft blog for a clue of whats wrong with the company. Bunch of overpaid lazy bastards.

There was another company that felt it was high and mighty like that. I am simply shocked, yes shocked, that this happens in the IT world where the growth and progress is so rapid.

Oh well, I am no longer a Microsoft shareholder (will it ever leave 20’s?) so their inactions are not very relevant to me. I’ll take the free stuff.

Hi @all

[quote]So Virtual Server is fine for me - I don’t need any 64-bit guest support. And if Vista/Longhorn is supported in Virtual Server for us everything is fine.[/quote]

VS´05 R2 has native 64bit support and I have the final since several weeks in my testing environment.

The whole palaver about how bad MSFT is, brings to sitting here with a smile on my face.

When you don’t like a company or there products don’t buy it is really simple.

But for me MSFT has pushed the IT Market where it is now… My daily work as a Sysadmin with W2k3 is really good and gets event better with R2. When they would read the manuals understand the built-in technologies…than they could flame about MSFT and their bad products…

@All Trolls in IT: RTFM, install the updates, try Group Policies, WSUS, Remote Installation Services (Riprep), Software Deployment by Policies … and buy the right third party products when it’s needed…

Sry, I had to say that… back @ topic: I will get a production environment consolidated within the next month. And I’m really looking forward to that. (2x W2k3 R2 x64 Hostserver running 8 Guest Machines with W2k3 R2 x32, on VS’05 R2 EE)

Have you thought about the support issues when running your environment with a non MSFT product? => http://support.microsoft.com/kb/897615/en-us

When I would use Xen or another Unix/Linux Product I would migrate all Servers to it…why I should fight with a Multi / OS Network when no one forces me?

BTW: When u wanna now something about VS read John Howards Blog:

http://blogs.technet.com/jhoward/archive/category/7931.aspx

Best Regards Philipp Kohn
http://blog.kohnonline.de
Germany