Linux: coming soon to a Microsoft VM near you
As virtualization has made significant strides over the past couple of years, companies have been embracing it as a cost-effective means of running multiple environments on a single server. Microsoft made its big entry into the market in early 2003 when it purchased virtual machine expert Connectix. However, the company made it clear early on that it wasn't interested in supporting Linux or Unix on its virtual machines. So when Virtual Server appeared, it was officially Windows only. As is the case with their Virtual PC product, if it's not Windows, you're on your own.
Things change. Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer announced that when Virtual Server Service Pack 1 is released before the end of the year, it will officially support virtual machines running Linux and Solaris x86. In a demo shown at the Microsoft Management Summit 2005 in Las Vegas, Ballmer remarked that seeing Red Hat Enterprise Linux running on Virtual Server "hurt his eyes," but that official support for non-Windows operating systems was something customers have been looking for. Left unsaid was the fact that other competing virtualization products such as VMware and the open-source Xen already provide such support.
