Which virtualization vendor will win your business?

A fierce battle in the virtualization space is taking place to win your business. It is an exciting time to be a part of this movement, and I wonder who will win your business.

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XenServer is really helping to make virtualization popular on the Linux platform. VMware and Microsoft (formerly Connectix) have really made virtualization popular on the Windows end with products such as VMware Workstation and Virtual PC. You also have VirtualBox getting a piece of the pie on the desktop front. Microsoft buys Kidaro for their desktop virtualizaton.

Enterprise products such as VMware Server (formerly GSX Server) and Microsoft’s Virtual Server have recently been declared FREE to feud the ongoing fight to keep or gain market share, respectively. VMware delivers ESX3i, a free hypervisor. Microsoft responds with a free hypervisor of their own called Hyper-V server.

It is a war, and it will be interesting to see who the top contenders are. Currently, XenSource, Virtuozzo, and Virtual Iron are trying to become the top contender on the Linux and Windows platform. Clearly, VMware with their ESX server product is the 800-pound gorilla, but Microsoft would like to change that with the release of its Hyper-V hypervisor. Oracle is even becoming a major player in the virtualization world; it’s crazy out there. Gartner released a chart, shown in Figure A, that shows the fierce competition for your business.

Figure A

Competition

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Please take my poll on which virtualization vendor will win your business.

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