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The dark motive behind Microsoft's virtualization delays
Microsoft last week pulled a planned update to the Windows Vista licenses that would have made it easier to use the software in a virtual desktop environment. The event was strange from the very beginning, with the firm first briefing several reporters and then pulling the announcement without any explanation.
Gartner claims that Microsoft has returned to its old anti-competitive roots. The Vista licenses are currently preventing virtualization because Microsoft doesn’t yet have a competitive offering in that market, the analyst fumed.
Microsoft is getting a severe beating in the virtualization market place. Windows Server's Viridian has been reduced from a "kicking everybody else's behind" to a "me too" offering in a desperate effort to salvage its release schedule. Virtual PC 2007 meanwhile has been turned into a free offering because it literally is a product that you couldn't give away for free.
Preventing users from running Vista virtually is essentially a tactic of the scorched earth. Virtualization could have offered a high level of security by running Internet Explorer inside a 'disposable' operating system, or by offering enterprises to store their user's entire desktop on a central server, or run a media server in a separate virtual system.
Never mind that Microsoft will hold back the truly interesting desktop virtualization applications for years, the company has a monopoly to defend.
Dell CTO Kevin Kettler envisions a world in which Linux and Windows XP coexist at Linuxworld in April 2006. But because Microsoft is looking out for its customers profits so well, this won't be an option with Vista any time soon.
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