VMWare puts the pressure on Microsoft
Summary: It might be wise for Microsoft to allow people to distribute their own demo-wares on pre-configured Windows 2003 servers using the 90-day evaluation copy of Windows 2003 server. If they don't, companies will just have to distribute Linux instead.
I've been using VMWare long before Microsoft bought Virtual PC from Connectix, and I use it to this day. It's not that I have anything against Microsoft's solution, it's just that VMWare has worked very well for my lab testing platform where I test everything from FreeBSD appliances to Linux to Windows Server and no tools are available to convert VMWare images to Virtual PC images. VMWare's recent announcement of the free VMWare Player is about to make things even tougher for Microsoft because it puts an already popular product in the hands of the masses. If Microsoft wants to remain competitive, they would have to come out with their own free Virtual PC Player. Microsoft is already bundling Virtual PC in to their enterprise edition of Windows Vista, so the free Virtual PC Player for existing versions of Windows isn't really that much of a stretch.
Our own David Berlind feels that everyone should try VMWare Player and I couldn't agree more. I would only add that it is the ultimate demo tool for complex software that requires complex installation procedures. VMWare even provides a Virtual Machine Center where vendors like BEA, IBM, Oracle, and others show case their products preinstalled on a Linux Server instance. This is truly a stroke of genius because it makes it possible to demonstrate software that would often take a day or more to install and puts it in a cooked package that's ready to deploy and test. This also makes it possible to showcase Linux and FreeBSD to a Windows audience that hates the sight of nasty configuration scripts or commands that are so alien to them. It also gives Linux and FreeBSD a leg up on Windows since independent vendors cannot just package a Windows 2003 Virtual Machine with their demo-ware pre-loaded on it. It might be wise for Microsoft to allow people to distribute their own demo-wares on pre-configured Windows 2003 servers using the 90-day evaluation copy of Windows 2003 server. If they don't, companies will just have to distribute Linux instead.
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Talkback
MS will stomp it
C'mon...
People use Windows because they want to.
I disagree
Windows only. It is critical to my job and doesn't work in a virtual
environment. I have tried it on Linux and Mac with no luck. I am
forced to use Windows at work, but use Mac for my home desktop
and Linux on my server.
There's WINE
Windows-Virtually Gone
off Windows", not "how do I stay". David Berlind went to lengths
to describe why the avarage user might want VMWare. The main
reason is keeping Windows running with some small degree of
dependability. That means periodically dumping Windows and
replacing it with a "fresh" copy. Can you tell me what is wrong
with this picture?
As the hole Windows users are digging for themselves gets
deeper, VMWare offers a ladder. Both of you suggest Windows
users say thanks and promptly use it to haul out more dirt.
Not always
Fair enough
You ARE forced to buy Windows...
Build your own hardware
Or maybe
No you're not
What??? You mean that
But how could that be? This is a free economy afterall... who knows.... :-(
VMWare is not going ANYWHERE.. look who owns VMWare.
THEY ARE EMC. Maybe you've been under a rock for a while, but more of my IT dollars go to EMC then Microsoft right now. THEY ARE WINNING MANY PARTS OF THE COMPLEX IT INFRASTRUCTURE. I run a very M$ centric environment (dozens of W2003 Servers) and guess who spins the disk for them... EMC, guess who backs them up... EMC Legatto.
EMC is hear to stay as much as Microsoft and Cisco are...
Ironic - what they need to do is offer cheaper VMWare Server
That's Microsoft stronghold and Microsoft could easily choose to match the offer since Virtual PC at $99 retail isn't a huge revenue stream to give up.
The irony is that VMWare is just starting a fight they can't win. The real battle is for servers and that's where VMWare is grossly overpriced.
We are really excited about virtualization and have offering virtual machine hosting services for our web hosting clients (www.voicegateway.com), but we didn't use VMWare.
It was simply much too expensive - thousands and thousands of dollars, while Microsoft Virtual Server 2005 was incredibly affordable.
The MS product works great but at this time it doesn't have some of more advanced features that VMWare has such as virtual machine migration and advanced monitoring and control.
Since VMWare has chosen to milk the market and charge a fortune (probably because they sell to the Enterprise market and got oem's like IBM and HP that will pay through the nose) they are winning the battle but losing the war.
The very high pricing is encouraging companies like us and others to choose Microsoft and ride-out it. We know MS will kick-butt and catch-up and surpass VMWare features soon.
And of course, MS has the ability to build better OS-level support or even include virtualization directly into Longhorn server.
VMWare isn't doing anything except milking their short-term competitive advantage.
We've seen this horse-race before -- I'm betting on Microsoft. They've always won in the past and there's every reason to believe they have the upper-hand in being the dominant virtualization provider for the Windows platform.
Problem is that VMWare
Virtual PC
now what store can I buy it for at that price? and don't tell me about some place online.
msft bought virtual PC from Connectix(its' original creators). so let's not try to pull the wool over the sheep's eyes that this is another one of msft's great innovations. ;-)
btw, I'm still using virtual PC v.6 for the mac and I see no reason to upgrade because "it just works."
gnu/linux...giving choice to the neX(11)t generation.
quickly on to another topic when the "OO2 is a slug" argument is lost
awww...
gnu/linux...giving choice to the neX(11)t generation.
Lost?
as follows
Firstly, he posted an SXC file for an OO2 test, and quoted load and save times based around this. OO2 does not natively use this format, it uses ODS which is TWICE as fast to load (not using import filter).
Then I added 320,000 formulas to the spreadsheet. In OO2 the recalc time is instantaneous (hardly a "slug"). Also global search and replace of ".DWG" to ".dwg" took 24 seconds on my machine.
My machine is a Dell inspiron 1200 1.4GHz celeron M with 512meg of RAM.
George said the ".DWG" replace took 40 seconds in OO2 on his 3.4 GHz machine. (and MS Office did it in 30 seconds).
1. George's machine appears to have problems if my very very cheap Inspiron really trounces his machine. Or something not totally truthful is going on here.
2. Even by George's figures, global search and replace took only 30% more time in OO2 over MS Office. So the core assertion that the load and save times would illuminate core inefficiencies in usability has been proved to be total rubbish.
3. Remember a 100 meg spreadsheet to most people is like a blue moon, George was using such a large file in his own words to iluminate core inefficiencies that would be hard to otherwise show.
My machine loaded the 100 meg spreadsheet (when in ODS format) in 90 seconds. If I was ever presented with such a large file (I've never seen anything like as big as that) then I'd be perfectly happy with 90 seconds load time, after all, I'd probably be working on it for hours, and when loaded, OO2 is very responsive, recalc of 320,000 formulas in under a second, and global search replace in 24 seconds. That's no slug.