Microsoft Wants You to 'Get Virtual Now'

Bob Kelly, Microsoft's corporate veep of infrastructure server marketing, gave the first of two keynotes—mainly focused on customers and partners.

The parade of customers, live and in videos, was a nice touch, and it made for a refreshing product strategy introduction. Microsoft can talk, but customers walk. That said, I observed that Microsoft virtualization technologies appeal most, at least for this presentation, to customers already heavily invested in the company's software.

Microsoft, however, is touting interoperable solutions from Novell and Sun. Today, Microsoft and Sun announced that Sun's new xVM virtualization platform had been certified to run on Windows Server versions 2008, 2003 and 2000. Sun's Solaris hasn't yet been certified to run as a guest on Hyper-V.

Microsoft has much work to do as it pushes into the hot virtualization market, for which server consolidation drives enterprise interest. The company is pushing to extend from its Windows base into a market dominated by VMware and for which analysts project rapid enterprise growth in the coming years.

For example, according to IDC, in Europe, among sampled companies using virtualization, 82 percent use VMware products compared with 13 percent for Microsoft. On the continent, among servers purchased last year, 35 percent were virtualized. IDC expects the number to reach 52 percent in 2008.

Microsoft's Hyper-V virtualization technology is bundling on the server similar to what the company has done in the past with Windows on the desktop. The company is betting on deep cross-feature integration and Windows familiarity, on the desktop and server, to make Hyper-V, Virtual Machine Manager and Application Virtualization 4.5 competitive alternatives.

"If you know Windows, you know virtualization," Bob told "Get Virtual Now" attendees this afternoon. Of course, Microsoft is going to leverage its assets for competitive gain. But Microsoft best be mindful of European trustbusters who have repeatedly fined the company for Windows desktop and server ties.

That said, Microsoft's strategic emphasis on what it calls "Dynamic IT" could benefit even virtualization competitors such as VMware. According to IDC, server virtualization is still largely contained to specific uses like server consolidation or software testing. IT organizational attitudes about server virtualization benefits and lacking in-house expertise are primary barriers holding back the technology.

Microsoft's virtualization approach could solve both problems. For the first, Microsoft is heavily promoting virtualization's most meaningful benefits beyond server consolidation and cost savings; typically, when Microsoft pushes for mainstream adoption of a technology, other vendors benefit, and that could mean VMware. For the second, Microsoft seeks to fill in the knowledge gap by offering virtualization technologies in ways that extend in-house expertise with Windows software.

"Why do people virtualize?" Bob asked "Get Virtual Now" attendees. He gave three reasons why they should:

• Reduce technology costs
• Increase IT's efficiency
• Make businesses more agile

But the reasons why IT organizations should virtualize aren't necessarily why they are doing so. Bob observed that early virtualization efforts focus on cost reduction, for which there is huge, measurable benefit in areas such as power consumption. Other benefits shouldn't be overlooked. Bob emphasized the value of making IT organizations more responsive, by more easily shifting resources in response to business needs. Hardware constraints stretch out how long IT organizations must take to make changes. "Virtualization takes it down to minutes," he asserted.

"IT is no longer constrained to the physical environment," Bob emphasized. Virtualization is "not an end to itself." From that perspective, virtualization technology is the heartbeat of what Microsoft does best as an enterprise software developer:

• Make it easier
• Do it cheaper
• Bring it to the masses

Bob described Microsoft's goal as being to "democratize virtualization." That aptly describes how Microsoft has repeatedly taken out established and sometimes entrenched competitors. I'll have more to write on Microsoft's execution plan after the 3:30 p.m. EDT keynote with CTO Kevin Turner and Bob Muglia, Server and Tools senior vice president.

Related Posts:

• Get Virtual Now, or Else, Microsoft Watch, Sept. 8, 2008
• Microsoft's 90-Day Sleight of Hand, Microsoft Watch, Aug. 19, 2008
• Microsoft.com Goes Virtual, Microsoft Watch, June 26, 2008
• Around the World in Less Than 180 Days, Microsoft Watch, June 26, 2008
• Microsoft Gets Hyper-V over RC, Microsoft Watch, March 19, 2008
• Server Launch: Too Many Missing Pieces, Microsoft Watch, Feb. 27, 2008
• Microsoft's Virtualization Seven, Microsoft Watch, Jan. 22, 2008
• Microsoft Gets Hyper About Virtualization, Microsoft Watch, Dec. 13, 2007
• Windows Server 2008 RC1 Reaches the Masses, Microsoft Watch, Dec. 5, 2007
• Free Virtualization Software for Software Assurance Customers, Microsoft Watch, Nov. 12, 2007
• Microsoft Makes the Hyper-call, Microsoft Watch, Oct. 24, 2007
• It's a Virtual(ization) Mystery, Microsoft Watch, June 21, 2007
• Windows Server at the Core, Microsoft Watch, June 5, 2007
• Viridian Delay Foreshadows What About Windows 'Longhorn' Server?, Microsoft Watch, April 12, 2007
• Windows Server Takes the Lead, Microsoft Watch, Nov. 16, 2006