Microsoft Beefs up Virtualisation Offering

By Greg McNevin

January 23, 2008: Microsoft is reportedly stepping up its push into the world of virtualisation, currently dominated by EMC’s VMWare, with the software giant expected to announce update software and pricing as well as an acquisition.

The virtualisation market is growing exponentially due to its ability to cut hardware costs and power usage, however, currently Microsoft’s presence in it is limited at best.

To combat this, the company has announced several steps to boost its virtualisation capabilities and get into the game before it’s too late.

The first of these, is an acquisition of Calista Technologies, a US firm that specialises in graphics technology for those using remote desktops.

Next up the company has adjusted its Windows Vista Home and Basic licensing to enable the two versions of the OS to be run in virtual environments, and has cut the cost of Vista Enterprise Centralised Desktop for US$78 to US$23.

Finally to round of this round of strategic moves it has announced a new piece of software is under development to facilitate the transfer of virtual machines between Citrix Systems’ XenServer and Windows Server 2008.

Whether or not these moves will have any sizeable effect on Microsoft’s position in the market is yet to be seen. VMWare has is far and away in front of the pack, and if it can keep innovating it may just stay there.

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