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Credit where credit is due. Microsoft announced an interesting twist in marketing enterprise software today – ship the tirekickers a preconfigured virtual machine using Microsoft’s virtual hard disk image format:
At VMworld 2006, Microsoft is making available their new virtual hard disk (VHD) Test Drive Program, which allows customers to confidently evaluate enterprise software from Microsoft and its software partners in a fraction of the time.
Mike Neil, senior director of virtualization strategy in Microsoft’s Windows Server Division:
This program enables Microsoft and its partners to distribute their enterprise software and applications within a virtual machine so that IT professionals can confidently and quickly evaluate Windows Server-based software. A similar program for Windows Vista will be available in the first quarter of 2007.
These virtual machines, which are provided in Microsoft’s virtual hard disk image format, are pre-built and pre-configured so that they can be downloaded or distributed for easy setup and evaluation. This allows customers to evaluate software in a fraction of the time it usually takes, such as setting up SQL Server 2005 in minutes instead of hours.
The VHD Test Drive Program is a first for Microsoft software and the more than 7,000 software vendors who can now deliver pre-configured applications within Windows Server-based virtual machines to their customers. Today the program launches with the latest versions of Windows Server 2003 R2 Enterprise Edition, SQL Server 2005 Enterprise Edition SP1, Microsoft Exchange Server 2007 (32-bit beta) with Microsoft Office Live Communications Server 2005, and Internet Security & Acceleration (ISA) 2006 Standard Edition. Partners and customers can expect to see additional Microsoft software added to this program.
We expect more than 20 partners to begin distributing their software via the VHD Test Drive Program later this quarter, including Altiris, BEA Systems, Check Point, Citrix, CommVault, Dell, FullArmor, HP, Network Appliance, Platespin, Portlock, Quest Software, SourceCode Technology Holdings, Symantec and UGS. Over the coming year, we anticipate our partners will use this program to get more than $10 billion in software into the hands of IT professionals to evaluate.
Virtual machines are incredibly convenient for testing server software unless you really like wiping and re-building test machines, and VHD is a perfect fit for shipping a pre-built system image. Also don’t forget that Microsoft’s Virtual Server is free. VMs would also be good for demoing client software too, but I suspect that they are beyond the average user.
Update: Patrick at Microsoft’s Windows Server Division WebLog says the VHD Test Drive Program is now live and remarks the similarity to VMware’s Virtual Appliances.
Microsoft has raised a media alert for a press conference at 2PM Pacific time where CEO Steve Ballmer will make “an industry announcement.” There are no more official details than that, but the Wall Street Journal is reporting (actual WSJ link here, subscription required) that Microsoft and Novell are entering into a partnership whereby Microsoft will offer sales support for Novell’s SUSE Linux and the two will work on technologies that make it easier for users to run both SUSE Linux and Windows. It sounds to me like a Microsoft Virtual Server deal in the same vein as Microsoft’s agreement with Xensource in July.
Update: The actual deal was rather bigger than I had guessed:
Microsoft Corp. and Novell Inc. today announced a set of broad business and technical collaboration agreements to build, market and support a series of new solutions to make Novell and Microsoft® products work better together. The two companies also announced an agreement to provide each other’s customers with patent coverage for their respective products. These agreements will be in place until at least 2012.
Removing the spectre of Microsoft patent lawsuits is nice for the Open Source crowd and I suppose vice versa, but here’s the fine print:
Under the patent cooperation agreement, both companies will make upfront payments in exchange for a release from any potential liability for use of each other’s patented intellectual property, with a net balancing payment from Microsoft to Novell reflecting the larger applicable volume of Microsoft’s product shipments. Novell will also make running royalty payments based on a percentage of its revenues from open source products.
So at one stroke, Novell gets cash and Microsoft establishes the position that Linux in some way infringes on Microsoft patents. Nice.
But wait, there’s more:
Under the agreement, Novell is establishing clear leadership among Linux platform and open source software providers on interoperability for mixed-source environments. As a result, Microsoft will officially recommend SUSE Linux Enterprise for customers who want Windows and Linux solutions. Additionally, Microsoft will distribute coupons for SUSE Linux Enterprise Server maintenance and support, so that customers can benefit from the use of an interoperable version of Linux with patent coverage as well as the collaborative work between the two companies.
I’m somewhat doubtful that Microsoft salesmen are going to be giving SUSE Linux more than a footnote for sheer personal economic reasons. Could you blame them? The fine print says that Microsoft is purchasing 70,000 coupons from Novell so my take is that this is merely another cash transfusion.
The two companies will create a joint research facility at which Microsoft and Novell technical experts will architect and test new software solutions and work with customers and the community to build and support these technologies. The agreement between Microsoft and Novell focuses on three technical areas that provide important value and choice to the market:
• Virtualization. Virtualization is one of the most important trends in the industry. Customers tell Microsoft that virtualization is one way they can consolidate and more easily manage rapidly growing server workloads and their large set of server applications. Microsoft and Novell will jointly develop a compelling virtualization offering for Linux and Windows.
• Web services for managing physical and virtual servers. Web services and service-oriented architectures continue to be one of the defining ways software companies can deliver greater value to customers. Microsoft and Novell will undertake work to make it easier for customers to manage mixed Windows and SUSE Linux Enterprise environments and to make it easier for customers to federate Microsoft Active Directory® with Novell eDirectory.
• Document format compatibility. Microsoft and Novell have been focusing on ways to improve interoperability between office productivity applications. The two companies will now work together on ways for OpenOffice and Microsoft Office system users to best share documents, and both will take steps to make translators available to improve interoperability between Open XML and OpenDocument formats.
I question how much of a player Novell is in any of these areas where there are already substantial ongoing efforts, but heck, why not share the love? Finally, the press release is replete with encomiums from executives at Intel, AMD, HP, Dell, IBM, and SAP, but it’ll be interesting to see how it plays in the broader Open Source community.
To net it out in one line: Microsoft bought some legitimacy in the heterogeneous environments that predominate in larger businesses while Novell got cash and perhaps a slight advantage in the Linux commercialization business.
Microsoft’s Windows Server Division Weblog has the news:
A few weeks back we introduced a type of non-binding agreement for Web services software called Open Specification Promise. Today we announced that the same agreement now applies to the virtual hard disk (VHD) image format used by Microsoft for encapsulating the OS and app within a virtual machine.
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So what’s this mean for the 60+ partners who previously licensed VHD under a royalty-free agreement? It means that you can either stick to the terms of the existing VHD agreement, or you can choose to accept the OSP terms. Your call.
And why should Windows Server customers care about this news? I’ll venture to say that the friendlier terms of OSP will be appealing to more (than 60) vendors, who will then create new VHD-based solutions for Virtual Server and Windows Server virtualization. And I suspect many of these solutions will be interoperable with the open source world.
Ashlee Vance at The Register is a trifle skeptical and observes:
Hoping to up interest in its virtualization wares, Microsoft today freed up one of its key specifications used to manipulate virtual servers and applications.
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VMware, which pulled in $189m last quarter, has dominated the server virtualization market and forced Microsoft into some unusual behavior. Microsoft, for example, has decided to give away its server virtualization products for free, has teamed with the open source player XenSource and has opened its server licensing policy on the Data Center version of Windows Server to allow for free virtual OS licenses.
And yes, VMware has its own open virtual machine disk format specification which was announced in April.
Clint Boulton at internetnews.com:
Intel is no longer the sole star of Microsoft Virtual Server 2005 show.
Microsoft Corp. today trotted out the second beta of Windows Server Virtual Server 2005 service pack 1 (SP1), a version that supports virtualization features on AMD and Intel processors.
Beta one of the product supported Intel virtualization from the get-go; R2 SP1 debuts support for AMD, a clear indication that customers don’t want to virtualize solely on Intel-based machines.
You can download the beta here and there’s a list of other features. Beta 2 arrived a little early, but the final release is still scheduled for 1Q 2007.
