Skip to main content

VMWare sees new competition

On December 13, Microsoft (MSFT) provided a press release, with a nod to the holidays, entitled "Microsoft Unwraps Virtualization Surprise."

The surprise is that the long-awaited virtualization solution from Microsoft is going into public beta. It is available as part of the download of certain versions of Windows Server 2008. The new product, now named Hyper-V, provides some of the same server virtualization functionality currently offered by VMWare and XenSource which is now owned by Citrix Systems (CTXS).

Some notable features are that Linux integration is available in beta today with other operating systems coming in future releases. This means that the Microsoft solution is not limited to running only Windows as a virtual environment. This takes away some of the advantages of VMWare (VMW) and XenSource which can virtualize Windows, Linux and Unix.

Hyper-V is now included by default in Windows Server manager, which means enabling virtualization is as easy as installing any other role. Microsoft is making it extremely easy for server administrators to just dial up Hyper-V and not have to worry about installing other companies products to enable virtualization.

As users begin to put the beta release through its paces, we will hear more on how well Microsoft's solution actually works. No doubt, there will be some kinks to work out.

In the meantime, it is clear that VMWare has a reason to begin looking over its shoulder. Competition is coming and it is no wonder the company's stock was under pressure yesterday.

Disclosure: author owns no shares of VMW, CTXS or MSFT
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Time to be conservative with your 401K

Most of the posts I and other financial bloggers write are typically focused on individual stocks or ETFs and managing active portfolios. For those folks who are more conservative investors, those whose main investment vehicle is a 401K, for example, the techniques for portfolio management might be a little different. The news of stock markets falling and pundits predicting recession is disconcerting to professional investors as well as to those of us who are watching our balances in an IRA or 401K sag. What approach should the average 401K investor take? Let's assume that the investor is contributing on a regular basis to one of these retirement accounts. There are two questions that the investor needs to ask: 1. Should I stop putting the regular contribution into stocks? My feeling is that investors making regular contributions are being handed a present by the markets. Every week the market goes down, these investors are lowering their average cost. When markets reco...
7 comments
Read more

The Trouble with Trend Reversal Indicators

Many of us use various trend reversal indicators to time our trades. Our desire is to determine when prices have changed direction so that we can ride the new trend. Why doesn't it always work out? The first reason, of course, is that unforeseen events often drive prices in unexpected directions. That is something we can't change and it often makes all of us technical traders crazy. On the other hand, sometimes an unforeseen event is a prelude to a new trend. A stock spikes up on a what seems to be a one-time piece of good fortune and soon falls back. Does it start making its way back up or does it resume a previous down trend? The conflict within trend reversal indicators is that, though they can definitely tell when prices change direction, they suffer from two problems. One, they often can't determine how significant that move in prices actually will be. Two, they are often lagging indicators. As such, they can be late in providing a signal, sometimes leading the investo...
1 comment
Read more

Unlock Stock Market Profits - Key #4

This is the fourth article in a series of posts describing 10 tools to help you identify and evaluate good investing ideas. It is based on a post that provides a summary of the ten keys that individual investors should use to identify profitable stock trades. ( Click here to read the original post ) With this fourth post, we will continue another step along the path of finding stocks that seem to have some potential. The first post in the series discussed how to use unusual activity to identify investing ideas. The second post described how to use stock screeners. The third post described how to use lists of new highs and new lows. This post will focus on identifying social or business trends in order to find investing ideas. Information on new trends might turn up anywhere. In conversation with friends or business associates, in newspapers or magazines, on TV or though your work. The key is to be aware of trends and how they start, stop or change. We'll start by describing what...
6 comments
Read more