Microsoft takes on VMware in virtualization

Microsoft is the new competitor in the virtualization market, but executives outlined some of the reasons they think the company can dominate it during a Microsoft virtualization event in Bellevue, Washington, on Monday.

While VMware is by far the server virtualization market leader, Microsoft hopes it can compete on price, features and the strength of its other products, the executives said.

"VMware is ridiculously expensive," said Bob Kelly, corporate vice president of infrastructure server marketing for Microsoft.

Microsoft's Hyper-V should cost users about a third of what VMware would, said Kevin Turner, chief operating officer of Microsoft, speaking during a keynote presentation at the event and using VMware prices listed on public Web sites.

Microsoft has also worked hard to allow customers to manage both VMware and Hyper-V within Microsoft's System Center management software, the executives said. "So we think customers will deploy us side by side with VMware, and then, because of the price, you'll see customers move to us," Kelly said.

Some customers are saying that the cost difference is indeed a factor for them. Matt Lavellee, director of technology for the MLS Property Information Network in Shrewsbury, Massachusetts, said that since the real estate information firm already uses Windows Server to run its Web server farm, the cost savings of using the included Hyper-V instead of VMware proved overwhelming.

"Our analysis was that to use VMware would have meant 30 percent of our potential infrastructure expenses would have been just for VMware," he said. VMware-trained IT staffers were also 10 percent to 20 percent more expensive than Microsoft-trained ones, he said. "Cost is such a driver that unless Hyper-V didn't work, we weren't going to look at VMware."

Microsoft executives played up advantages the company has for selling a wide array of products and services that customers may already use. "Virtualization is only one part of the solution. You need a complete platform," said Bob Muglia, Microsoft's senior vice president of Microsoft's server and tools business.

That idea is a plus for Microsoft. "If their software works as well or nearly as well as VMware, it becomes a challenge for VMware because of the sheer weight of Microsoft," said Michael Cote, an analyst with Redmonk.

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