The Hoard Facts

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Snippets from the Dave Bartoletti File

VMworld Day 2: I had a very interesting and productive interview today with two Microsoft virtualization execs here at VMworld. The two are David GreschIer, Director of Virtualization Strategy in the Management and Services Division, and Mike Neil, General Manager, Windows Server and Server Virtualization in the Windows Server Division. Great stuff, and I look forward to writing up the piece.

I mention them not because I intend to blog about them now, but because I recently interviewed Dave Bartoletti, a Senior Analyst at the Taneja Group, in preparation for the above-mentioned interviews. Dave had a lot of interesting things to say, but due to the ever-present space considerations, I will not be able to use them all. Therefore, I will use some interesting quotes here. To wit:

"I think Microsoft is trying to change the conversation away from virtualization as an infrastructure technology to virtualization as simply an enabler for application delivery. I think that takes them back to their strengths.

Comment: Based on my conversation with Greschler and Neil, I'd say Dave pretty well nailed it.

"You don't see a lot coming from Microsoft that says here's how we're going to displace VMware as the real data center server virtualization platform. I think where they would like to see Hyper-V is being the server component of desktop virtualization strategies."

Comment: Don't count Microsoft out of the server virtualization race. Outwardly, they are watching some favorable numbers develop as Hyper-V increasingly takes hold. There is no doubt, however, that Redmond covets the multifarious desktop virtualization space.

"Until recently, a lot of XenApp solutions or XenDesktop solutions still had VMware as the hypervisor in the data center. I know that Citrix has made some noise recently that they're happy that a lot more of these XenDesktop applications actually are being supported by XenServer, but I think it's over 50% of them are being deployed on VMware back ends."

Comment: And if you think VMware doesn't love telling that story to anyone who will listen, you are just plain loco.

Posted by Bruce Hoard on 08/31/2010 at 4:31 PM


Reader Comments:

Mon, Sep 13, 2010 Kevin Wilson

When it's time for the corporate desktop group to grow a virtual desktop infrastructure, it is planted on top of the "established" hypervisor that the corporate server group is already using. If a corporation moves forward into advanced 10,000+ seat VDI, then they may look at an independ and segregated VDI infrastructure and relook at the hypervisor through experienced eyes.

Tue, Aug 31, 2010 Brian J. Bartlett Fresno, CA

Why would anyone be surprised at where Microsoft is focusing their efforts. Follow the money, or more accurately what is Microsoft's cash cow. They are playing to their strengths which is almost certainly a very good idea. I've been involved with virtualization all the way back to the mid-eighties (and beta-testing since the late nineties: Hyper-V and vSphere have totally different audiences. While one can perform the other's tasks, it does not do it well in either direction.

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