February 07, 2012, 7:36 AM — The world of hypervisors is complicated by the fact that there are proprietary and open source tools, each with different strengths and weaknesses.
One expert says the difference between the two is that innovation is coming out of the open source products at a quicker pace. But another expert doesn't quite believe that first to market is the key to success. He says this market is too important to be downloading open source bits frequently. With that dilemma, enterprises instead turn to commercially supported products.
IDG analyst Al Gillen says another factor in choosing open source or proprietary has to do with the relationship between the hypervisors and the operating system. He put it this way with regard to the customer's decision: "It really comes down to what their infrastructure looks like, what their background is, what their experience has been and where their road map is going."
This pdf gives you a definition of what a bare-metal desktop hypervisor is, plus details who the players are in the market and where they sit. Two industry leaders also debate virtual desktops: should you use client-side or server-side hypervisors.
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