Microsoft offers Hyper-V as free download
Microsoft has thrown down the gauntlet to VMware by launching the lastest version of its Hyper-V hypervisor as a free download, cheekily offering the software to coincide with the first day of the VMworld show in San Francisco.
The hypervisor, which is available as a standalone download as well as being part of Windows Server 2008. The move follows a week of bust-ups between Microsoft and VMware. First of all, Microsoft ceased to be a sponsor of the VMworld show following a claim by the software giant that VMware had laid down a series of unacceptable conditions. Citrix also joined in the fun by pulling out as a sponsor too.
Then, there was an entertaining war in the blogosphere as Microsoft blogger Jeff Woolsey slated the footprint size of the ESXi hypervisor, pointing out that "VMware touts ESXi as a 32 MB hypervisor, yet the download is over 200 MB. So, are we too assume that the other 170+ MB doesn't count? "
