The Microsoft-VMware Virtualization Battle

In the virtualization market, VMware certainly had the first-mover advantage over Microsoft, yet the Redmond giant appears focused on closing the gap. Tech pundit Paul Rubens calls it a long shot at this point.

These are tough times for Microsoft, at least when it comes to virtualization.

Here’s the problem: VMware stole a march on Microsoft by establishing itself in the server virtualization space before Microsoft was aware of what was going on. That in itself is not particularly remarkable — Microsoft has a long history of failing to get in early in new fields, but it usually gets up to speed quickly through acquisition or by using its muscle to force the competition out of business.

But VMware (NYSE: VMW) hasn’t been so easy to push aside, and if we’re going to be honest about it, Microsoft (NASDAQ: MSFT) really hasn’t made much headway when it comes to the server virtualization space. That’s despite introducing its Hyper-V hypervisor as part of its server OS, its System Center Virtual Machine Manager module, Hyper-V Live Migration to compete with VMware’s vMotion, and all the rest of the Microsoft server virtualization technology.

But the truth is, if you want to run heavy-duty, mission-critical applications, you run them on Linux or Unix, not Windows Server. In the same way, if you want to do heavy-duty, mission-critical server virtualization, you’re going to do it with VMware, not Microsoft’s Hyper-V, aren’t you? A case in point: How many enterprises are actually carrying out many Hyper-V Live Migrations? Not many, I’d wager.

Read the rest about Microsoft, VMware and virtualization at ServerWatch.