VMware Giving Away Server for Free?
Published on 4 Feb 2006 · Filed in Musing · 208 words (estimated 1 minutes to read)Lots of bloggers are talking about the rumors, perhaps justified, that VMware will announce on Monday, February 6, that it is giving away for free a product called “VMware Server.” It’s not clear yet if this is actually the equivalent of VMware GSX Server, or if this is entirely new product.
I was first alerted to this possibility by a posting at RTFM Education; soon after that, more articles began cropping up in various places:
There’s bound to be some truth to all of this, since some of these stories are coming from fairly reputable sources (the virtualization.info article has a link to a CNet article).
If it’s true, that’s fantastic news—there are so many customers that I really want to start using virtualization, but I can’t get them past the price tag. And while Microsoft’s Virtual Server 2005 is a good product (just did an install for a customer yesterday, as a matter of fact), it’s just not in the same league as VMware’s products (in my humble opinion).
I’ll post more once the official announcement occurs on Monday.