Over on VMBlog, David is reporting that Microsoft has released its first download of what can loosely be considered a virtual appliance. This is a technology preview of Visual Studio, but it’s significant because to this point Windows has never been distributed this way. Of course the machine only works on Windows Virtual PC 2004 or Virtual Server 2005, but it is an interesting turn of events. Up to now pretty much all virtual appliances have been based on open source operating systems, usually linux. Windows licensing has been the major barrier, but the sheer size of Windows doesn’t help anything either. There is an opportunity here for Microsoft though, Windows XP embedded is a platform intended for this kind of thing, but the licensing cost will certainly prohibit any widespread distribution of appliances based on it. So the big question becomes, will Microsoft allow Linux to dominate the virtual appliance space and in so doing lose even more ground on the server?
Published October 2nd, 2006 in Virtual Appliances, Windows Virtual Server and Commercial.
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