Submitted by InfoWorld’s Randall Kennedy reviews Hyper-V RC1, and though he finds the Windows Server hypervisor lacking the sophistication of VI3, the company’s try and try-again attitude might help the company in gain an advantage over VMware. “For many shops, Hyper-V will prove to be plenty good enough, allowing Microsoft to begin eating away at VMware’s market share while preparing the next-generation product for the final assault that topples the leader.”
anyone was ever fired for using software that was plenty good enough?
It sounds like the author of the post is sure that Microsoft will overtake VMWare, which is kind of presumptuous. Isn’t this what got MS in trouble – bundling a “good enough” product for free to take out the competition? I don’t think MS has what it takes to take out VMWare technically right now, especially given their Windows-only world, but I guess time will tell.
But Hyper-V isn’t free; it’s $29. 🙂
I really think it’s about what kind of virtualisation you want to do. People willing to run few virtual machines on Linux will use something based on kvm or VMWare’s free server. On the other hand, people wanting to do small-scale Windows virtualisation will use Hyper-V. Yet this leaves us to people who want to do some serious stuff with tens of thousands of machines who will want something more centrally manageable. These people are willing to buy commercial stuff from VMWare or from Microsoft when they’ll have their tools ready for this this kind of stuff.
Ps. Don’t get me wrong. I left out Xen and friends mainly because I wanted this comparison be free v. paid in some abstract level. So in real world there are more options.
Hyper-V is not free, you have to purchase a Win2k8 license.
The strength is not in the hypervisor, it is in ability to monitor and manage large amount of machines via system center.
VMware already has very mature tools for doing this with VirtualCenter and their other products. That and every decent systems monitoring solution has some type of VMware support either natively or via 3rd party plugins. Microsoft has quite an uphill battle against VMware.
Yeah, you misunderstood me. As hypervisors go, Hyper-V isn’t anything special. As management tools go, System Center is very good. I don’t really see them competing on the strength of Hyper-V, but I can definately see System Center getting to a point where it is the only real choice for large scale deployments.
I’m a dev though, and not really an expert on IT stuff (although it is an interest of mine), so i fully admit i could be wrong on this.
So far I’m impressed. It’s very easy to use and performance is good. The only real problem we’ve run into so far is Linux VMs having their kernel panic at times. That’s excusable as it’s not a final release. Even runs OpenBSD like a champ.
I don’t see it as a VMWare replacement, though. Not yet.
The only real problem we’ve run into so far is Linux VMs having their kernel panic at times.
Isn’t that how it was designed and supposed to work? MS can’t have linux running on their Hypervisors can they? They might just perform better than Windows itself…
This will be typical MS business. MS will come in and give this away to volume customers for free (Even though they hate that Linux can be free) and use that as the way to get people off VMware.
Then after they eat VMwares market share then they will start to charge for new versions. This is the MS way.
That’s business. In addition, it’s actually perfectly legal, and it’s a common business tactic to deploy new products in a crowded market.
Basically, there are two ways to position a new product in a crowded market. You can position it in the upper lines of the market, make it expensive, and make it appear as a premium product. Then, slowly, over time, you reduce the price, so that more and more people will be able to buy one. The psychology behind this is that people still see the product as it was when it was first laucnhed – premium and expensive – and as such, they’ll buy it. It has the added advantage of allowing manufacturers to start with a small production capacity, and increase it step-by-step.
This is what Apple has been doing with the iPhone. In Dutch it’s called “afroompolitiek”, but I have no idea how to translate that.
The opposite tactic is to start at a very low price, giving everybody access to the product – this is called the penetration strategy. This way, you can slowly start to increase the price if necessary to gain more profits – you just have to be sure people have become, in some way, dependant on your product and will buy from you again once their cheaper variant breaks down.
Basic economics. Stylised, too, of course.
Edited 2008-06-24 09:19 UTC
Actually in the US it would not be legal to put out a product way below market value.
If everyone sells a product at $10 and you come into the market and give away your product at a loss just to kill comp. That is not fair business practice. And that is the exact reason MS went to court over IE.
Apple sells the Iphone. They do not give it away. They are selling them to ATT at full price, ATT is lowering the cost not APPLE. And ATT is making up the reduction in cost by charging more on the monthly bill to make up that lowering in cost. So the Iphone is not being given away in any way, shape or form.
In the end of your contract a new Iphone 3G owner will actually pay almost $100 more for the phone then you would of for the Iphone 2G
As with IE MS will add Hyper V to Windows and they will give it away while other enterprise products are being sold. This happened at my office. We used to use Zenworks for software management. When we were about to renew (For $150,000) MS came in and gave my government agency SMS for free IF we got rid of Zenworks. SMS is not as good but so what, it’s good enough and its free.
Sources?
Your closest law professional. Not many countries accept price dumping.
This is not about price dumping – you’re referring to predatory pricing.
Predatory pricing is something completely different from what I meant. Predatory pricing occurs when a company starts selling a good at a very low price compared to others, with the goal of driving others out of business. Even though this is illegal, it simply has never occurred anywhere. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Predatory_pricing .
The crucial thing here is that even if Microsoft were to give away its hypervisor for free to everyone, they would still not be below the prices of others. Xen is free, and most other virtualisation tools (although not hypervisors) are freely available too – so how on earth can Microsoft employ predatory pricing in a market where most products are free?
Edited 2008-06-24 11:37 UTC
Source:
United States v. Microsoft, 87 F. Supp. 2d 30 (D.D.C. 2000) was a set of consolidated civil actions filed against Microsoft Corporation on May 18, 1998 by the United States Department of Justice (DOJ) and twenty U.S. states. Joel I. Klein was the lead prosecutor. The plaintiffs alleged that Microsoft abused monopoly power in its handling of operating system sales and web browser sales. The issue central to the case was whether Microsoft was allowed to bundle its flagship Internet Explorer (IE) web browser software with its Microsoft Windows operating system. Bundling them together is alleged to have been responsible for Microsoft’s victory in the browser wars as every Windows user had a copy of Internet Explorer.
Bundling for free was the central issue to the case.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_v._Microsoft
I’m sorry, that is just wrong. Competition drives down prices, which is one of the benefits of it.
The reason MS went to court over IE was not that they were giving it away, it was that they were a monopoly, and leveraging their os market share to dominate a new market. Even in this case, if they were not a monopoly there would have been nothing wrong with what they did.
MS is far from a monopoly in the server room, which is where win 2k8 lives and is competing.
This isn’t quite the same, as Microsoft don’t have a monopoly situation when it comes to servers. Apart from the advantages of consolidating machines as you can do with virtualisation technology, the advantage for a lot of people in VMware and other non-Hyper-V solutions is that they can better control Windows on Linux and non-Microsoft platforms. Personally, I just don’t see the point of virtualising Windows on Windows primarily because there are other benefits to be had.
Also, say what you like, but you are just going to get better support for non-Windows guests in VMware and other non-Microsoft solutions. I don’t see Microsoft wiping out VMware at all, although they will face stiffer competition from Hyper-V and Xen and KVM.
No Microsoft does not have 90% of the server market like they have and had that much of the desktop market. But they are in the dominate position at 67%
http://www.thestreet.com/_yahoo/newsanalysis/itmanagement/10376540….
There are 2 things that will eventually make VMWare irrelevant.
1) XEN – The fact that you can use XEN for “FREE” on Linux to do the same thing as VMWare will eventually take all Linux market share from VMWare. In RHEL, XEN is built right in and ready to use.
The fact that with XEN, you get UNLIMITED FREE virtual machines (aka free OS licenses) with just purchasing a SINGLE copy of RHEL, compared to VMWare where you have to purchase all those expensive VMWare licenses, and then pay for an OS license for each VM on top of that just makes it a no-brainer financially to use XEN instead of VMWare for Linux.
2) Microsoft will do the same thing as Redhat. Virtualization will be built right into the base server OS, and it will have the same financial proposition. Purchase one copy of Windows Enterprise and you get the virtualization built in, and you get to run free unlimited windows VM’s on that one license compared to VMWare where you have to purchase the VMWare software and the buy a copy of the Windows license for each VM.
VMWare will just not be able to compete financially unless they can give everyone free Windows or Linux licenses.
Excuse me, but I can’t imagine a production server running hyper-v + antivirus + antispyware + antimalware +antiwhatever for virtual appliances.
I’m serious, i don’t get that picture, in fact, I don’t get any MS pictures at all.. and I am no freesoftware zealot.