I see that your point is end of the day you need to save money. But just because Hyper-V is cheaper it is not directly proportional to low costs. If you consider the facts like 1. you can accommodate more VM per server on ESX than on Hyper-V 2. No Down time involved in moving the VMs uninterrupted - vmotion, change the storage of the VM without any down time - storage VMotion, HA, DRS etc. the savings involved will be substantial. Not to mention the reliability of ESX. I think people do care about which hypervisor is better esp if you are a big enterprise. Because reliability is proportional to money. What you said might be true when it comes to small and medium businesses, they might not mind some down time. But even then, I would prefer paying more and getting more out of my dollar than buying cheaper products and getting a cheap result out of it. I think VMware should do what it is best at doing - create innovative product that would save money to the customer. Not by giving the product at cheaper price but by giving the bang for their buck. Of course I would be the happiest man if they reduce their prices :)

VMware is chaper than MSFT if compared on VM basis. VMware automates VM management the way better MSFT is dreaming about. Hyper-V will be crashed all the time you don't not have the good drivers for your environment. And at the end of the day ESX is just better hypervisor. But you right: customers don't care and simply love MSFT J

Interesting article and relevant to a recent conversation. A friend at BMW said they adopted Windows Server 08 and Hyper-V for a new after-market application being deployed at their car dealerships. He said they expect performance and reliability to meet their needs based in internal tests. And they're using native services like NAP and IIS, which don't come with a license of VMware VI3. And he said they use MS Ops Manager so MS management tools offered better option compared to VMware. If this situation plays out elsewhere, then we should expect continued marketing tactics from VMware.

VMWare would also be smart to focus on (or even pay attention to) maximizing the value of its product to customers.

For example, Fedora is not formally supported and VMWare virtual machines can't see CISCO VPN adapters on the host machine.

Supporting the most guest OSs and host system devices is one way to differentiate VMWare from the "built in" rivals from bigger companies.

VMWare would be wise to focus on ensuring that customers can get maximum value from the product.

For example, Fedora is not formally supported and guest OSs can't see CISCO VPN adapters on the host machine.

Oversights like this are misssed opportunities to differentiate VMWare from the "me too" offerings of bigger rivals.

I agree with Kevin to a great extent. Not all CIO's care too much about the quality while choosing Microsoft products. VMware needs to concentrate on product quality and customer service while promoting Microsft's core competitors(Search, open source , Online office rivals etc). As long they have the money from these core products, they can gain market share though deceptive marketing practices.

CIO radar

Very good article. Interesting thought that choosing the wrong battles can cost you the war. Leave it to upper managment to forget that the people they're selling to actually care about the benefits and not the glorious features.

Also, initial cost isn't everything. If it was no one would use Macs. There are a lot of factors to consider in each purchasing situation. Just because the up front cost is low doesn't mean that its the best long term solution.

I agree with Kevin. I work in this industry, not only as an industry analyst but also as a partner of both companies along with Citrix. This space is so bloody with competition that each vendor is losing sight of the customer and the value in the product in relation to what the customer wants.

This was posted as a response to a blog post I did a couple of weeks ago around who will be the "Value Innovator" in this industry; "The eventual value innovator in this space - whether VMWare, Citrix, Microsoft or a new entrant, has a huge opportunity to reshape the assumptions around form, function, customer experience and more. Who are the non-customers that are not even being considered by any of the existing players? Who among the buyers, users and influencers are being ignored? What do customers love and hate about doing business with this industry that the industry takes for granted?"

Think about it VMware, Microsoft, Citrix

Cheers

I think unless Microsoft comes up with products equivalent to VMware. It is not fair to compare them. Microsoft has just come up with a hypervisor and vmware already has a mature hypervisor and an array of products to manage a virtual data center. By the time Microsoft plays catch up, VMware would be way ahead in terms of products/features. If Microsoft comes up with equivalent products in near future which are again cheaper than VMware products, at that point I would consider Microsoft a real alternative. But then if you just want to compare hypervisor to hypervisor in terms of cost and go with the cheaper one. I agree with Matt here - you would be looking at a short term solution.
What I most fear about using Hyper-V is that after you start using it, what if you find issues that wont be fixed until next service pack, and God knows when that is going to be. And virtualization is expanding so fast, what if you have to scale up a notch, you will be stuck with Hyper-V and keep waiting for MS to release service packs or play catch up with other products. I would rather bet on VMware which is solely concentrated on virtualization and already has proved its worth with its innovativeness and new features/products that it is adding so rapidly. If you want to compare apples to apples I think Xen to be a more suitable alternate in near futur. But that would be a topic for another discussion.