VMware Strikes Back
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VMware claims Microsoft is using "software licensing and distribution terms" tactics to gain unfair advantage in the market for virtualization technology. |
In an open letter released on Feb. 23, VMware charged:
"Microsoft is trying to restrict customers' flexibility and freedom to choose virtualization software by limiting who can run their software and how they can run it. Microsoft is leveraging its ownership of the market leading operating system and numerous applications that are market leaders in their respective categories (Exchange, SQL Server, Active Directory) to drive customers to use Microsoft virtualization products."
Earlier last week, Microsoft released Virtual PC 2007 as a free download.
VMWare's major gripe is simple: Microsoft's licensing terms restrict VHD (Virtual Hard Disk) distributions to use with the company's own software.
In a statement issued today, Mike Neil, Microsoft's general manager of virtualization, rebuffed VMware's criticisms.
"Microsoft believes the best approach for customers lies in establishing a foundation of cooperation between vendors, which is why we strive to regard virtual machines and virtualization technology the same way," he said. "Windows server licensing offers a level playing field to all."
However, VMware's criticisms extend beyond server-based virtualization.
What VMWare overlooks is perhaps the most important point. Microsoft has significantly increased the use of virtualization technology as a means of distributing trial products. By distributing virtualized trial software, Microsoft greatly increases the exposure of its virtual machine and virtual server products to medium and large businesses.
The tactic is an aggressive form of bundling, which takes advantage of Microsoft's desktop monopolies and increasing presence on the server. From a customer testing perspective, there are arguably benefits to receiving preconfigured virtualized images.
Virtualization is one of the hottest growth areas on the server and presumably the desktop. Based on research from Gartner, Forrester and IDC, about 75 percent of Fortune 2000 companies now regularly use virtualization on production systems.
Making inroads in the virtualization market isn't just about selling products—after all, Microsoft gives away Virtual PC for free. Virtualization is one way Microsoft can mitigate competitive threats from rival operating systems.
Comments (7)
See updates and additions to "An Open Letter to Joe Wilcox re Free Microsoft Software" at http://oakleafblog.blogspot.com/2007/02/open-letter-to-joe-wilcox-re-free.html.
--rj
Posted by Roger Jennings | February 26, 2007 4:33 PM
VMware should be worried! They are trying to sell a product that Microsoft and others are willing to give away for free!
Posted by Spencer Ferguson | February 26, 2007 4:51 PM
No need to worry for VM.
They make a far superior product to Virtual PC 2007.
It's faster and you can actually run more than just Microsoft's OS on it.
BTW, there is a version of VMWare that is Free and it's still better than Virtual PC.
Posted by Ron | February 27, 2007 9:40 AM
Well balanced article. If even got Microsoft's comments on the issue...
Posted by evan | February 28, 2007 3:29 PM
Wasn't expecting of course to have microsoft's position mentioned somewhere on this article. Well balanced.....
Posted by evan | February 28, 2007 3:31 PM
In short, MSs behaviour just PLAIN SUCKS - so what's new ??
There is NO WAY MS can currently compete with VMWare's Product line so they do their usual lets introduce a set of "restictive policies" routine.
I've just finished reading VMWare's whitepaper and various other source including MSs "public" response which is "limp" to say the least.
Not ONCE do MS offer any "counter-rebuke". Why not ? Cos' they CAN'T.
All they want is for VMWare to publically "shut-up" so they can carry on with their "agenda" behind closed-doors.
Do any one of you think MS will actually change their stance ? Get a life !
What little respect I had for MS (which I admit wasn't much to start with) has just gone out the window.
Tell you what - existing VMWare customers will see this for what it is and they'll say "Who ******* cares what MS do" ?
They'll never be allowed to move to a "virtualization only" distribution model. Customers won't accept it.
And we'll be damned if we're going to allocate resources to MS based VM trials - we'll buy the MINIMUM Virtualization hardware/software to do the job - one server should do it - if we ever need to look at this stuff.
Oh BTw - anytime you see an MS exec using the phrase "Microsoft believes the best approach for customers" translate that to
"Microsoft believes that it is in its own self-interest to". Please Mr MS exec - STOP being a patronizing git !
Put more focus into developing the products instead of this policy based BS !
I really hope this whole rigmarole SERIOUSLY backfires on MS and they lose even more market share - it's what they deserve !
Posted by Steve Berry | March 1, 2007 4:24 PM
I'll agree that it does suck. One huge benefit of VMWare is for software developers. It saves me hours per day being able to switch between various configurations to test our software. So for a software developer you may have multiple configurations of the same operating system but you are always running it on the same physical computer.
For Microsoft to say that you cannot install Vista Home Basic or Premium on VMWare is ridiculous and I hope the government goes after them for monopolistic practices. Why would licensing for those products be any different then the more expensive ones.
If Microsoft really wants to do what is best for consumers there would have been two versions of Vista. Vista and Vista 64 bit. They would have also made it completely backwards compatible and include all of their own legacy dll and ocx files as part of the base install. Major things like the Rich Textbox Control and Common Dialog controls are not even part of the Vista Install.
Not to mention the complete joke that you still have to right click and "Run As Administrator" even when you are logged in as the Administrator. I congratulate Apple on their commercials on that one but in reality there is nothing funny about it when you have to answer 3 dialog boxes to copy a file over.
Posted by Rodney | March 1, 2007 7:46 PM