Yeah that's what we need, Citrix owning Xensource. That piece of crap has to be the worst app I have ever supported. Citrix on every server...NOT!

Too bad. Xen was promising, especially with all the support for Linux. Vmware Server has proved to be mch better for me though and it's free. What will Citrix do with free Xen? Kill it probably, they were never known for free or cheap, just buggy.

Poor old Citrix has invested in what sounds like another load of snake-oil...

...about Citrix? We all know the storyline and Citrix don't feature.

Over the next year or so, VmWare will consolidate their position as market leader, MS will then start tweaking Windows to make it prefer Virtual Server, which will be built into the next version of Windows (partly as a way of supporting all the legacy apps whilst letting Windows itself move forwards) and therefore "conveniently already on the customers PC as soon as they buy it". VmWare will take MS to court, but go bust whilst the court deliberates, and ten years down the line MS will be issued with a token fine and told not to do it again.

Couple of thoughts:

1. For years we have wondered whether/when Microsoft would swallow Citrix, but it hasn't happened. Even if Xensource makes Citrix more appetising, I don't buy the idea of "spend $500m to make us worth more when we're swallowed", whether deliberate or unintended.

2. The point made on one of your SCC episodes, that the industry is sleepwalking into a single vendor stranglehold with VMware, holds. But the problem with Xen isn't ownership, or marketing, it's that VMware works better and is improving at least as fast as Xen catches up.

Buddy, can you spare AIDiamond of a Mine? :-)

"In reality though, it just may be the case that Microsoft never gets this virtualization thing quite right. It's shown no indication of having the technology down so far."

In reality though, this virtualisation thing has got nothing to do with the technology per se, and everything to do with landing the right brAIns to Program the Future with ITs Virtualisation of Globalisation Programs/Dark Matter Cinderella Rock a Fella Market Forces.

And if anyone tells you that Virtualisation is any different, then they aint got ITs CodeXXXX, and $500million would be a crazy sum to pay for Vapourware.

An ex Cellent Sub-Prime Play though, you would have to admit.

Goodness knows what the priceless Real McCoy would be arbitrarily valued at? Not that it would really matter whenever it is Virtually, in Reality, an Inward Circular Investment.

The Long Good Friday v2.00.... Holywood Directors Cut has a Certain je ne sais quoi/Deja Vu Resonance.

"[citrix] has a long history doing virtualization-type things by pushing shared software out from the server room onto users' desktops and making that a tolerable experience."

lies lies and more lies. I've been on the receiving end of several Citrix remote application installations in various jobs over the last 7 or 8 years. Perhaps the problem lies with insufficient bandwidth or other resource constraints, but in each installation I've encountered it has inevitably become referred to as "Shitrix". 'nuff said.

Citrix, Xen, Symantec and Microsoft... what a lovely combination.

Ok, Citrix works well enough (although it's incredibly convoluted), but I've lost all respect for software from Symantec and Microsoft. And all four mashed up together to provide virtual services is the kind of thing IT nightmares are made of.

Give me a consistent, well run solution from VMware any day!

Another poor article on the virtualization space from The Register. I wonder if any research went into this article at all, considering some of the glaring inaccuracies like the following:

"Microsoft will fail to make such claims next year when it ships a revamped virtualization platform that lacks key tools such as the ability to move virtual machines around physical servers."

This is just plain incorrect: Virtual Machine Manager can do this today (http://www.microsoft.com/systemcenter/scvmm/default.mspx). If you're talking about high availability, then has been available for a while using Virtual Server and Microsoft Clustering Services (see http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=09cc042b-154f-4eba-a548-89282d6eb1b3&displaylang=en).

As for: "In reality though, it just may be the case that Microsoft never gets this virtualization thing quite right." I'm not quite sure what you're getting at: Virtual Server is here today, and it works. A windows server virtualization CTP was released alongside Windows Server 2008 RC0 just recently (http://www.microsoft.com/windowsserver2008/virtualization/install.mspx), and it works. Microsoft offers virtualization management in the form of SCVMM (see above), which actually outshines VMWare's equivalent Virtual Center in some areas.

I know that MS is everyone's favourite punching bag, but how blatant does it have to be? Sheesh.

Yeah that's what we need, run a $hit OS on top of a $hit OS. I can't see why anyone would want to run VMs on top of Windoze. Think patching, and instability. If you work in a datacenter where they force you to use Windoze on the servers then you know how many times processes hang on a Windoze box. I have no problem with running it on top of Linux or another 'nix platform because that would actually make sense. Patch one VM while running another instance of it and no down time but IMHO it is suicide to run VMs on Windoze no matter what the host virtualization software is.

-Tim