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For some arcane reason it didn’t merit a press release, but yesterday Microsoft released System Center Virtual Machine Manager to manufacturing. Microsoft’s Chris Stirrat has full details on the Windows Virtualization Team Blog, but the elevator pitch is that SCVMM (or VMM) is a tool for large enterprises to manage their virtual machines with the same ease as today’s management tools allow them to manage physical server machines.
Today after a bit of a delay earlier in the year, Microsoft today released Service Pack 1 for Virtual Server R2 for download. Patrick at the Windows Server Division Weblog tells us what’s new in SP1:
Mike Neil, Microsoft’s GM of Virtualization Strategy, today revealed that the schedules for the public beta of the Viridian feature of Windows Server Longhorn and the release of Virtual Server 2005 R2 SP1 are slipping:
The public beta of Windows Server virtualization will ship in the second half of 2007, not in the first half as previously disclosed.
The final version of Virtual Server 2005 R2 service pack 1 now will be available in Q2, not Q1 as previously stated. In the interim, customers and partners can download a Release Candidate (RC) version later this month - this is code complete and an update to the current beta 2.
The cause for the Virdian beta delay was that more performance and scalability work was needed, but Neil is emphatic that Windows Server Longhorn is still on schedule as is Viridian, although as currently planned Viridian will lag the 2H07 Longhorn release by up to 180 days. As for Virtual Server 2005 R2, integration of support for three additional operating systems (SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 10, Solaris 10, and the latest CTP of Longhorn) gets the blame
Over the weekend, I mentioned a NY Times profile of Microsoft virtualization software competitor, VMware, that seemed laden with “Microsoft is an unfair competitor” rhetoric. Today comes word that VMware has published a whitepaper on their website that could well be titled “J’accuse” which details Microsoft’s anti-competitive licensing and distribution practices related to virtualization. Most of what is mentioned is familiar to those who follow the industry, but having them lay out the 7 accusations so concisely makes one wonder when the next shoe will drop. As Mary Jo Foley remarks:
My biggest question, after reading The Times story and the VMware white paper is when will VMware file a lawsuit? It sounds like VMWare — in spite of its 80 percent virtualization market share — is gearing up to lodge one heck of an antitrust complaint against Microsoft. (I wonder if VMWare parent EMC Corp. is really up for that kind of move. Maybe.)
Presumably VMware isn’t marshalling their arguments for the exercise, so what will it be - lawsuits or complaints to the various antitrust watchdogs or both?
