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Archives for January 2009

Microsoft MED-V Now In Public Beta

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In the beginning of this month, we explained the difference between Microsoft’s App-V and MED-V.

Last week, Microsoft announced the release of the public beta of Microsoft Enterprise Desktop Virtualization (MED-V), formerly known as Kidaro Managed Workspace, a solution that is designed to essentially help enterprise organizations run older operating systems and applications on new Windows-based systems.

According to the company, MED-V can be used to give companies more time with their legacy operating systems and software applications while they upgrade their Windows environment. As an example, IT shops can continue to run Windows XP-based applications even while they upgrade to Vista.

Alessandro offers more information.

Research and Markets’ Latest Report: “Vendor Landscape: Virtualization Competition Heats Up”

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Via VMBlog comes word of a new report from Research and Markets titled: “Vendor Landscape: Virtualization Competition Heats Up”:

“VMware retains its leadership position in this updated vendor landscape of virtualization software. However, the virtualization market has seen greatly increased competition in 2008. Microsoft has emerged as a legitimate competitor through its release of the Hyper-V hypervisor and Citrix has stormed onto the scene with its acquisition of XenSource.

This research note provides an overview of the x86 server virtualization landscape and addresses how the vendors meet the following key selection criteria:

-Vendor and product maturity.
-Advanced features and suitability for a utility infrastructure.
-Cost of licensing.

VMware remains in the leadership zone due to its market share and continued innovation toward comprehensive data center virtualization. However, where VMware was the only game in town a few short years ago, now the competition has become serious. Going into 2009, expect continued feature innovation and pressure on pricing. ”

Entire Line Of HP Thin Clients Now Certified for VMware View

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HP has announced that its entire line of thin clients is now certified for VMware View, making the products easier for customers to deploy in VMware environments. The certification includes rigorous testing and quality assurance with VMware View for enhanced reliability and ease of deployment.

HP is among the first in the industry to offer customers Linux thin clients certified for VMware View Manager, an enterprise desktop management server that enables IT administrators to quickly provision and tightly control user access. Additionally, HP is currently the only vendor to receive View Manager certification for Windows CE.

HP offers an extensive lineup of Windows and Linux-based thin clients suited for VMware View deployments that deliver a range of performance and features to support a wide variety of user needs – from basic data entry to advanced 3-D imaging and remote collaboration.

Windows-based HP thin clients certified for VMware View Manager, as well as HP ThinPro Linux products are available now at a starting price of $299. HP ThinConnect Linux-based thin clients certified for VMware View Manager are expected to be available Jan. 26, starting at $249.

Are You A vExpert?

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“VMware is very proud to introduce the VMware vExpert Awards. The VMware vExpert Awards will be given to individuals who have significantly contributed to the overall community of VMware users over the past year, either online or offline. You might be contributing online to blogs, forums, wikis, or other online sites. You might be organizing VMUG meetings or otherwise getting the word out to local IT professionals. You’re helping spread the word about virtualization and making people successful in deploying this game-changing technology. We want to thank you.”

Nice initiative from VMware, but it was apparently misunderstood by some, as John Troyer points out here:

“I’ve had a number of conversations today that have made it clear to me we have a bit of a misunderstanding. The vExpert awards are not a popularity contest. The awards will be made on the basis of your activities in 2008 for the community. Do not spam all your friends and colleagues asking for testimonials to be sent to the nomination site.

There is no voting. Multiple nominations will not help you. Instead, a committee will look at the hard work you’ve put in spreading the good word about virtualization in 2008, and will pick out the most worthy virtualization advocates. Having hundreds of people submit nominations will just make more work for me, and it’s never a good strategy to piss off the chairman of the judging committee.”

Xen Summit North America 2009

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The Xen.org community and Oracle are proud to announce the first major Xen event for 2009, Xen Summit North America at Oracle, February 24 – 25, 2009 at Oracle’s HQ in Redwood City, CA.

Global leaders developing for and using the open source Xen hypervisor will meet for 2 days of highly interactive discussion on product roadmaps, new features, and all things Xen related. With the increased
emphasis on the Xen Client Initiative, expect significant discussions on the port for the Xen hypervisor to all types of client devices.

Registration is only $215 and more event details are available at Xen.org. Included in the fee is an evening out at the Computer History Museum and other Xen Summit firsts!

If you have any questions, please contact Stephen Spector ([email protected]) for more information.

Industry Moves: Former Red Hat COO Tim Buckley Joins rPath Board As Executive Chairman

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rPath today announced that Tim Buckley, principal of Buckley Investments and former chief operating officer of Red Hat, has joined the rPath board of directors as the executive chairman. From his newly created post, Buckley will help rPath accelerate its push into the enterprise market with solutions for reducing the cost and complexity of delivering applications to traditional, virtualized, and cloud-based environments.

Buckley brings more than 20 years of experience in sales and marketing leadership for high-growth technology start-ups. Prior to founding Buckley Investments LLC, a Raleigh, NC-based consulting company, he was COO for Red Hat, where he was part of the executive team that transformed the company from a start-up to the dominant provider of open source operating systems to the enterprise market. Red Hat has publicly credited Buckley with its worldwide growth and transformation into an enterprise sales organization.

Prior to Red Hat, Buckley was senior vice president of worldwide sales for Seattle-based Visio Corp., where he was instrumental in growing the company from start-up to IPO and ultimately through a $1.5 billion acquisition by Microsoft. Earlier, Buckley was an executive with Aldus, the developers of PageMaker; and Approach, which he helped launch from its early stages through a major acquisition by Lotus Development Corp