Will VMware become the next Novell?
I know that’s a provocative headline but I didn’t write it. It comes from this blog post
I think David raises some interesting questions and perspectives but for me, his last paragraph is the most intriguing.
Do you care? We all run heterogeneous environments anyway, right? But if over time I have two VM’s and need to manage them – which management tool do I use? And here’s the rub – VMware is making great management tools – for managing VMware. But Microsoft’s management suite is designed to manage multiple VM’s from multiple vendors, including VMware. Now, if you find yourself in a situation where VM’s of all types are proliferating with each new system brought in (and they will), the key to reducing your complexity becomes the management tools – and over time standardization of the core products tends to track towards those tools. If the choice is multiple tools to manage multiple vendors vs. a single tool, which decision will most likely prevail? And if you eventually standardize on a single management tool, what’s the likelihood that the “preferred” platform was one designed specifically to run under that vendors tool suite?
I think the focus on management and multi-vendor management is one of the things that really sets Microsoft apart.