Rivals launch dueling Mac virtualization products
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VMware's beta 2 of Fusion is due in June, and Parallels' new desktop software is available now.
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IBM (Quote, Chart) continued to apply pressure to rival EMC (Quote, Chart) on the virtualization front with products that help customers improve how they shuttle data throughout different storage systems.
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Parallels Desktop, virtual machine software for Intel Macs, has been updated for Leopard.
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InfoWorld - SAN FRANCISCO - BakBone Software will showcase this week at Macworld Expo new storage backup systems designed for small- and medium-sized businesses that rely on Mac OS X, using its NetVault software, first announced for the Mac this past summer.
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Microsoft has laid out plans to become a bigger force in the market for virtualization software, stepping up its assault on established leaders such as VMware.The plans announced Monday include the acquisition of a startup company, Calista Technologies, whose graphics technology is designed to improve the end-user experience for people who access their Windows desktop remotely from a server, Microsoft said.The company also loosened some of its licensing terms related to virtualization. Consumers who use the Home Basic and Home Premium editions of Windows Vista will now be able to run those OSes in a virtualized environment, Microsoft said. It also announced new licensing rates for corporate users.Finally, Microsoft extended its partnership with Citrix Systems to make that company&#39;s Xen virtualization software work better with Microsoft&#39;s server and desktop software, it said.Virtualization technologies separate the software on a computer from its underlying hardware, allowing it to be deployed in more flexible ways. Virtualization can allow multiple operating systems to run on one computer, for example, or allow application workloads to be shifted between computers more easily to improve hardware utilization.The technology has been around for decades but was popularized in server environments recently by VMware and others. More recently, Apple introduced virtualization for its Macintosh desktops so that users can run both the Mac OS and Windows on the same machine.Microsoft has not been a significant player in virtualization, but it hopes to change that with its announcements this week. It plans to discuss the changes at its Virtualization Deployment Summit, a two-day event for 300 of its customers and partners that starts Tuesday.It argued that the virtualization market remains open for newer players like itself.&#8220;Very few customers are able to reap the benefits of virtualization today,&#8221; Bob Muglia, senior vice present of Microsoft&#39;s Server and Tools Business, said in a statement. &#8220;We estimate that less than five percent of companies are utilizing virtualization technology because it is simply too cost-prohibitive and complex.&quot;Microsoft&#39;s strategy will be to offer a full range of virtualization products, including desktop, server and management software, and do so at a competitive price, Muglia said.Customers with the Home and Home Premium editions of Vista can now run them as a guest operating system on a virtual machine, the company said. Among other things, that should mean that Apple Mac users who want to run Vista alongside the Mac OS can now do so without having to buy a more expensive version of Windows.For businesses, customers who subscribe to Microsoft&#39;s Software Assurance maintenance program can now get an annual subscription to Microsoft&#39;s desktop virtualization software for $23 per desktop, the company said.Citrix is developing a software tool that will make it easier for customers to transfer virtual machines between Citrix XenServer and Windows Server 2008 Hyper-V. A test version of the tool will be available in the second quarter, and the final version will be released along with Hyper-V, Microsoft said.The technology from Calista aims to improve the experience for people who access their Windows desktops remotely from a server. It allows people to view multimedia content on a PC or thin client without the media player or software codecs they would normally need installed.Microsoft will add Calista&#39;s graphics technology to future virtualization products, it said. Calista, of San Jose, California, is now a Microsoft subsidiary.
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InfoWorld - The newest version of Parallels Desktop for Mac &#8212; the software that enables Intel-based Macs to run Windows without having to reboot first &#8212; will be released on Tuesday. The software has undergone an extensive public beta test for the past couple of months. A free upgrade for registered users, Parallels Desktop for Mac costs $79.99.
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Leopard introduces lots of new apps and interface features to Mac OS X. Can Vista match up?
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The new Mac Pros run on dual Intel Quad-Core Xeon CPUs and a system architecture with "up to twice the performance of its predecessor."
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Features including Directory Services and Groups set up in Mac OS X Server will be respected by the virtual machines running on any given Xserve, making it easier for IT managers to configure multiple operating systems.
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There's money to be made in mediating others' software rivalries.
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TechWeb - Microsoft ships Virtual PC for Mac, version 7.
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Virtual reality, oh ho ho As the virtualization market continues to expand, concerns over incompatibility between virtual machines from VMware, XenSource and Microsoft are unsurprisingly growing with it.â¦
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While Mac users get busy running Windows virtually, what's Apple got cooking? In Monkey Bites.
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The company unveils a speedy server and desktop, both powered by 8-core Intel chips, just a week before Macworld.
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Parallels updated its software that allows Mac users to run Windows within Mac OS X on Thursday, adding support for Vista Boot Camp partitions, among other enhancements.
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(InfoWorld) - The president of virtualization software leader VMware Wednesday questioned the strategy of rivals that are integrating virtualization functionality into their operating systems. Diane Greene made the comments at the third and final day of the Morgan Stanley Technology Conference in San Francisco. VMware, a subsidiary of storage vendor EMC, doubled revenue in EMC's latest quarterly report, compared to the year ago quarter, as enterprises embrace VMware's virtualization software to make more efficient use of the servers in their data centers. RivalsÂ like Red Hat and Microsoft have responded to VMware's dominance by integrating virtualization into coming new operating systems. Red Hat is introducing Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5 next week, and Microsoft's new Windows server OS is due later this year. But Greene, in discussing virtualization with analysts for the investment firm, said she wonders how effective the competition's virtualization features can be. "Traditionally, the operating system manages the hardware and manages the application. Once you virtualize with a hypervisor, that is now what is managing the hardware, not the OS," Greene said, in a presentation that was distributed via webcast. "Now the operating system is just managing the application. So certainly Windows and Red Hat are moving to integrate virtualization into their OS, but part of the value proposition seems to be lost when you do that." Spokespeople for Microsoft and Red Hat did not respond to requests for comment. VMware is a strong contributor to the earnings of parent company EMC, which also sells storage hardware and security software. Greene also is executive vice president of EMC. Revenue for VMware increased to $232 million in the fourth quarter of 2006, 101 percent more than a year prior. The growth comes from increased demand for VMware Infrastructure 3, a virtualization software suite for servers and storage networks. VMware's growth prompted EMC to recently announce plans toÂ spin off 10 percent of VMware in an IPO. EMC executives said they anticipate releasing the prospectus later this month for the IPO, expected about midyear. Greene noted the stock sale will benefit VMware employees as well as potential shareholders. "Our stock-based compensation will track our performance, and that is the ideal model," she said. Also at the Morgan Stanley conference, Greene acknowledged that virtualizing servers, which helps them use more of their designed capacity, may suppress server sales growth. But she said many customers are upgrading servers as they introduce virtualization into their operations. Those new servers are more high-end products, with greater processing power, and should yield higher margins for server vendors. EMC reported fourth quarter 2006 financial results Jan. 23, posting net income of $389 million, or $0.17 a share, on revenue of $3.21 billion. It edged out analysts' estimates of $0.16 a share. Â
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Fusion due in August VMWare's Windows-on-Mac application, Fusion, will go on sale in August, the virtualisation technology specialist announced today. Order it now and you'll get the software at half price, the company said.â¦