Microsoft, the big absentee of virtualization

Monday, 27 March 2006 by Michel Roth

This article is about what Microsoft will be able to offer against VMware.

"Where is Microsoft while VMware is delivering virtualization innovations one after another, driving the whole IT market quite all alone?

Let's consider the Virtual PC / Virtual Server development cycle from 2002, when the Redmond giant acquired the VMware competitor called Connectix, to today:

2003 - Virtual PC 2004
2004 - Virtual Server 2005
2004 - Virtual PC 2004 Service Pack 1
2004 - Virtual Server Migration Toolkit
2005 - Virtual Server 2005 R2 (originally planned as Service Pack 1)

In 4 years customers saw few innovations (some readers will remember that Connectix was already working on a server product when Microsoft acquired them), no enterprise management tools, no serious physical to virtual (P2V) migration tools."

Read more here.