VMware is Not the Novell of Virtualization

Virtual Insanity is a blog I read frequently. Regular contributors include a number of VMware and EMC employees. Now that the transparency topic is out of the way, let's talk about the whole idea that VMware is acting like Novell years ago when NetWare was pitted against Windows NT. A consultant working with me back in the mid 1990s when I was mulling going to Windows NT for file servers asked me, "Why would you replace your file server with an inferior product?"

That was so true then, technically speaking. NetWare 3 and 4 back in the day offered file server functionality that still to this day is not matched by the Microsoft offering. Don't believe me? Look up the NetWare flag command and see if you can do all of that with a Windows file system.

When it comes to virtualization, will Hyper-V or some other virutalization platform supercede VMware whom currently has the superior product? My opinion is that this will not be the case.

VMware innovates at a rate not seen by the fallen hero in NetWare and other products who may have "lost" the Microsoft battle. I will concede that innovation isn't enough, but I see the difference-maker is the greater ecosystem of infrastructure technologies which are moving at this same rate. Whether this be cloud solutions, virtual desktops, server virtualization or virtualized applications; the entire catalog becomes solutions that make technology decisions easy for administrators. Couple the superior technology with that decision, and I think the case is made for VMware to not have a similar fate as Novell.

Where are you on the fate of VMware and a sense for the history of NetWare? Share your comments here.

Posted by Rick Vanover on 08/11/2010 at 12:47 PM