Nothing Personal

The sense that you get after watching Microsoft describe its upcoming virtualization product portfolio is that they're throwing everything including the proverbial kitchen sink into this battle and it's a battle that no one there is willing to lose -- future career options are at stake. Bob Muglia puts it on a more personal level when he talks about being half way down his ten year mission to improve datacenter operations. It's always hard to tell how the battle for the virtualization market will shape up -- VMware has a huge lead, a good product line and satisfied loyal customers -- at this stage the thing that is clear is that the team from Redmond is prepared for a long siege.