September 17th, 2004
Virtual Server 2005; no threat to VMware say analysts
There is some consensus among analysts that VMWare is not threatened by Microsoft’s new Virtual Server. While it costs less than VMware’s server virtualization products, it doesn’t officially support operating systems other than Windows, such as Linux. Forrester’s Frank Gillett says that as a result, companies should consider using VMware and Virtual Server, and let application requirements, price, and overall value rule. "Firms shouldn’t get suckered into a feature function and pricing shootout…the real contest here is to see which vendor’s product will integrate better with data center automation solutions that slash the costs of managing lots of OSes, whether they are virtual or physical."
Meanwhile Gartner, which comes across partial to VMware, says that it continues to recommend VMware ESX Server (its pricier enterprise edition) for consolidating mission-critical production environments, but speculates that unless VMware slashes its prices drastically, Microsoft will sell between 50,000 and 100,000 copies of Virtual Server 2005 by year-end 2005.
