Virtualization and Microsoft Deal

The Economist ran a good article entitled The rise of the hypervisor. It outlines Virtualization technology, the virtualization market and the power that VMware is accumulating in the market. It also explains how some of the other companies in the market are responding.

HP and Sun want to bring technologies developed for their high-end servers to the rest of the data centre. Microsoft, meanwhile, will integrate its own hypervisor, called Viridian, into the next version of its Windows operating system, essentially giving it away-and raising the spectre of yet another antitrust case.

Bill Gates and company made a misstep when they did not purchase VMware and allowed EMC to take control of it. The article also talks about Citrix’s acquisition of XenSource and drops some knowledge that I had not thought of.

Some people think that if Microsoft fails to catch up with VMware on its own, it will buy Citrix.

I’ve been trying to understand why Microsoft would have signed a deal with Novell. I’m beginning to think that the deal is sort of a “call option” or a legal hedge for a competing Virtualization technologies. If Viridian doesn’t prosper, Microsoft have a stake in another possible technology that allows them to continue milking their cash cow operating system. If they are slapped with an anti-trust suit by VMware, they can point to the availability of Xen as an option for the market.