Microsoft calls Windows Server 2012 part of its “cloud operating system”. In a field loaded with subjective and loaded terms, Microsoft is surely adding to the confusion. Say “cloud”, and you think Amazon, Google, VMware – but Microsoft? Yet Windows Server 2012 brings changes in scalability, management and flexibility that …

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Friday 2nd November 2012 09:26 GMT Nick Ryan

because customers are starting to switch to Hyper-V, the Windows hypervisor-based virtualisation system which comes bundled in with Windows Server 2012, rather than paying extra for VMware.

This is probably one of the most important points... I haven't tried the latest version of Hyper-V, but certainly on previous versions VMWare was markedly superior. However when it comes to a price comparison, free (convenient) and separately paid for are very different choices and while as soon as you start expanding your requirements Hyper-V prices do stack up, it's the initial hurdle that's one that can be hard to beat. MS is just front loading convenience to get users used to Hyper-V as a form of lock in for later and it's something that VMWare would find hard to counter in a similar fashion without losing a large proportion of their income.

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1. Friday 2nd November 2012 10:48 GMT h4rm0ny
  
  I was at a presentation on Server 2012 a few months back and there were around maybe two-hundred people in the audience. When Hyper-V came up, the hands all started to rise and there were lots of questions along the lines of "we do this with VMWare - can this do that...?"
  
  The answer previously has usually been no. But now the answer is 'yes'. I think there's a lot of people who were with VMWare because it was the only option. Certainly there was a very big buzz of interest at the conference. I've never costed up either solution for a big business, but technically Hyper-V is very impressive.
  
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2. Monday 5th November 2012 02:06 GMT RICHTO
  
  Hyper-V including all it's functionality like replication, software defined networking and shared nothing migration is completely free as in zero licence cost. There are no Hyper-V costs to stack up - except support - unless you want the Microsoft management tool stack - and its still an order of magnitude cheaper than VMWare.
  
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Monday 5th November 2012 14:21 GMT marc anton

closed sources are never a good idea

I work in a mostly MS Windows environment and for us MS products are not bad. But if one ever will have to change things, hard- or software related - MS puts major obstacles in the way to change. And then even the proprietary "free" stuff suddenly gets very expensive, if not preventing a transition at all. I will prefer VMware and in my opinion the initial costs and TCO are not higher than with MS. And it runs many different flavors of OSes since long without giving problems when changing.

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Monday 5th November 2012 23:05 GMT Cowbob

The Most Expensive Free Software On The Planet

Microsoft!

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