Wow. Microsoft is so GENEROUS!

Let me get this straight.... This article states that Microsoft will be "giving away" it software to allow multiple operating systems to run on a single computer. Swell.

VMware did that 6 months ago with it's VMWare Server product, free to any and all. I use it all over the place. I run my private streaming radio station on it. I use it at work and at home. The extra benefit for me is that a VMWare VM will run on an MS Windows box OR a Linux box. I don't know for sure, but I'd bet my fertility that MS will only release a version to run on MS Windows.

This is the browser war for the new century. Xen is Open Source, VMWare Server is free (as in beer)... there's Bochs and Qemu, both freely available hardware emulators... Why go with MS? Because it's free (as in beer), now? Eh. I really don't think Microsoft has anything compelling to offer here. Then again, I've never really thought Microsoft has had anything compelling to offer. In the last browser war (The Browser War), MS couldn't undercut Netscape on the browser side, in terms of price, so it went with a preadatory strategy of "incorporating" their browser into their operating system, such that it could not be removed. Thus, even if a user went through the trouble of installing Netscape's browser, selecting it as the default and using it, that user was still subject to all the flaws, security vulnerabilities, and usability issues of IE. Thus, Netscape, essentially, died. Their web server was not compelling, because there was Apache, and their browser was not compelling because IE was ubiquitous and inescapable.

This will be a little different, methinks. It will be some time before virtualization really gains traction in the comsumer market. Further, as MS continues to bulk-up its operating systems, hardware improvements will continue to be mooted by MS bloat, thus making virtualization just as pointless on an MS system 5 years from now as it is today. Besides... until MS makes a publicly acknowledged effort to be OS-agnostic in its virtualization offering, I don't know that many high-brow IT types are going to embrace it any more than they already do (except, of course, the ones who've already drunk the Kool-Aid)

And there's another wrinkle, here, which may escape the note of those who can't see the IT forest for the MS trees. Virtualization is not really simple to grasp.. Microsoft has spent the last 25 years dumbing-down its userbase. Now, they're going to spring THIS on them? Tee, hee. This'll be fun to watch.

I'm glad I get to watch this from the sidelines. I can chuckle and point, and I do.