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VMware: Another Netscape?

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the into-the-fold dept.

An anonymous reader writes " This CRN article states that Microsoft is about to buy Connectix and enter the server consolidation market. Connectix makes virtual machines products that compete with those of VMware. Quote: 'The technology will be integrated into the Windows code, sources said.' Will Microsoft be able to pull this one off? Will their virtual machines run operating systems other than Microsoft's?"

8 of 626 comments (clear)

  1. Most likely by dreamchaser · · Score: 4, Informative

    It's most likely desireable because they want to be able to run partitioned servers, much like one can do now with VMWare. Of course, I'm sure they won't mind 'embracing and extending' the product out of Mac-Space. It is probably the core virtualization technology that they are after though.

  2. They already annouced it... by banal+avenger · · Score: 5, Informative

    According to MacCentral. This could be good for the Mac, meaning the development team would have more access to Windows code and be able to guess how things are working less. Or it could be bad. And I have no idea what to think. Microsoft still makes money off of the license that goes with the sale of VirtualPC.

  3. Re:makes you wonder... by callipygian-showsyst · · Score: 4, Informative
    That's silly. Mac users buying Virtual PC buy a copy of Windows, too.

    Microsoft would have no reason to want to stop this.

    --
    Best Buy can have you arrested
  4. Re:Netscape is not a good comparison... by kma · · Score: 5, Informative

    Microsoft owns VMware as well, or at least has invested in it.

    No. I don't know where you think you heard this, but it's completely false.

  5. Re:My experience with Connectix and Linux by essjae · · Score: 5, Informative

    yes, if you read of any Connectix's docs you'll see that they emulate an S3 Trio 64 video card, as well as the rest of the hardware. I have installed RH 7.2, 7.3, 8.0, Mandrake 8.0, 8.2, 9.0, Lycoris (Redmund), Suse 7.2, 7.3, 8.1 with success.

  6. It's for NT4 apps by lseltzer · · Score: 4, Informative

    It's so that customers can run NT4-specific apps under future products like Windows Server 2003. See this eWeek article.

  7. Re:The biggest problem... by lynx_user_abroad · · Score: 5, Informative
    maybe we can BEG vmware to release a version for OS X?

    You misunderstand. VMware is an IA-32 virtualization application, which means is forms an application barrier around (and therefore requires) a real x86 processor. Its free-software counterpart is plex86. You'll never see a versaion of VMware for OS X until you first see OS X running on the IA-32 (x86) platform.

    Connetix VirtualPC is an IA-32 emulator, meaning it emulates in software the functions of x86 hardware. Its free-software counterpart is bochs, which is available for OS X today.

    --

    The thing about things we don't know is we often don't know we don't know them.

  8. Re:makes you wonder... by wal9000 · · Score: 4, Informative

    Yeah, I seem to remember hearing that the reason that the low-end edition of VPC ships with IBM's PC-DOS instead of MS-DOS is only because MS refused to license stand-alone MS-DOS to Connectix. As far as Microsoft is concerned, DOS without Windows is a non-platform.

    I think it's very likely that the DOS-only edition of VPC will disappear, assuming that VPC for Mac continues to exist.