VWware Quakes in Fear

Tue Feb 7 22:08:12 PST 2006

On Mon, Feb 06, 2006 at 01:29:13PM -0800, Jennifer Davis wrote:

> First vmplayer.. now vmware server! Excellent!

... and forwarded the following spam to the list:

> Dear VMware customer,

> As part of our strategy to make server virtualization universally
> accessible, VMware(R) today introduced VMware Server - a free
> virtualization product for Windows and Linux servers.

 My opinion of this should be pretty obvious.  VMware Inc. is
 quaking in their boots at the threat of Xen combined with the
 new generation of VMX/VT-x (Vanderpool) and Pacifica chips which
 provide the hardware virtualization support that Xen needs to
 host non-co-operating (unmodified) operating systems.

 They are pushing a "free" (gratis) product as a desperate measure
 to stem the tide while the free (libre) community effort is ready to 
 soak up all of their marketshare.

 Personally I haven't see that the Xen product has the polish for
 widespread end customer use.  Xensource needs to provide some nice
 GUI tools for "those people."  Meanwhile VMWare Inc.'s concerns
 are well founded; there customer service reputation seems to be pretty
 bad --- so customers are desperate to get away from them for
 non-technical as well as non-fiscal reasons.

 (BTW: "free" means something like "free for personal use." 
 I think companies need to make arrangements with VMware, Inc. 
 in order to distribute the server, even in-house.  In other words, 
 I could download it and use it; but I can't make it part of our build 
 image for all the new machines without talking to them.  As always read
 the licensing terms yourself and/or consult your own corporate counsel
 before doing anything with this).

-- 
Jim Dennis