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VMWare Eats Microsoft's Lunch
feminazi writes "Jeff Boles attributes VMWare's dominance over Microsoft in the virtualization market to a combination of product depth and focus, but especially to the fact that 'VMWare is actually delivering Microsoft's product in the way that Microsoft should be delivering it.' The ease of GUI but with those enterprise-ready traits that Microsoft is still struggling with: application separation, and decent resource utilization."
Today VMWare is eating Microsofts lunch, it's easier to use and performs better. But discounting MS would be a tragic mistake, this wouldn't be the first field MS entered late only to dominate later on. With their size, cash and market if MS wants to own the VM market on Windows eventually they will.
VMWare is easier to use.
Windows does not require reactivation when the image is opened in VMWare Server, Player, or Workstation. VPC images of demo configurations featuring pre-activated Windows that I get from Microsoft and attempt to run under Virtual Server require reactivation.
VMWare Workstation has too many useful features.
Therefore, I create my own demo environments in VMWare Server as my first choice and run VPC images in Virtual PC 2004 by necessity. Guess which environment is significantly faster? I have no incentive to use Virual Server 2005 R2.
Leonid S. Knyshov
Find me on Quora
in a big way... little Russian upstart making a big entry into the space
"I'd rather be a lightning rod than a seismometer." -Ken Kesey
in soviet Russia, salad tosses you!
For TFSummary: "Microsoft is still struggling with: application separation, and decent resource utilization."
And above all: security. Surely.
From TFA:
...ouch!
"But the other thing, is that VMWare has locked onto Microsoft's weak spot with the grip of a bulldog."
Somehow, a Bulldog does not conjure up an image of a death-grip hold. But a Pitbull, on the other hand,
I wish that EMC/VMware would hurry up and add Solaris 10 x86 host support.
Would be rather nice to run VMWare under Solaris 10.
:( What a bully.
For what it's worth Microsoft Virtual Server was originally developed by Connectix, not MS. Microsoft bought it.
Microsoft never really had a chance...did they? VMware simply rocks and supports a lot of platforms. Mhy Microsoft felt Virtual Server was even necessary was beyond me. Even when they give away free sessions, VMware STILL beats them hands-down.
I ask again, what were they thinking exactly?
I'm not a troll, but I play one on Slashdot.
Oh, I get it. So what we really want from the Microsoft OS is Ubuntu.
or, rather RHEL.
I am a VMWare junky, I have been using them for years and they continue to deliver quality software and upgrades are always jammed with new features.
Unfortunately....
Since MS gives Virtual Machine away to big Co.'s I am forced to use this horrible product at work. Once again MS finds a market, makes a far inferior product, then jams it down your throat by giving it away to their big customers.
//TODO: Insert catchy phrase
The article offers no details about how or why VMWare is better than the Microsoft offering, and in fact, doesn't even mention the name of the MS offering. No details about the features offered by either product. No details about the history of either product. No details about the "product depth and focus" attributed to VMWare. "VMWare is doing this by really giving us what we need from the MS Windows OS, that Microsoft has never been able to deliver. VMWare is actually delivering Microsoft's product in the way that Microsoft should be delivering it." um, great, but, um, how is that? What is it that VM Ware delivers and how should Microsoft deliver it and how is VMWare delivering it? This is an op-ed piece, with an a-subtle antimicrosoft slant. Little more.
who tosses their salad?
Ballmer, obviously.
KFG
I may be dating myself (as someone rather young) in saying this, but I've seriously never heard that before. Is this phrase really in common usage? It doesn't make any sense.
In soviet russia, You ask not what country do for you, but what you do for country!
Oh wait...
Well, but if you try to run Windows in VMware, you can expect a result like this.
(Just joking... VMware is pretty much the only way to reliably test an installer for win32. Plus, anything that would force someone to reactivate Windoze every single time a new debug build of your software's installer gets run can go to hell.)
The creatures outside looked from Alt-Right to Antifa; but already it was impossible to say which was which.
MS is scared that if they don't have some kind of player in every software niche that one of them will take off wildly without them. Plus whether their player is any good or not doesn't matter. There are enough MS groupies out there who'll buy anything they put out that they can't lose.
It started with firefox, as I remember it. They ignored it and figured it would go away, then had to shift gears just so it didn't appear that they were sitting around. Microsoft: on the cutting edge of a couple of years ago, as one magazine put it.
My turnips listen for the soft cry of your love
comon, this is just a bunch of marketing hoopla to promote sales of the new version of their software. the only reason we are seeing this article is because someone paid marketing to write a story. its all about sales. there is no new news here. move along. nothing to see here.
-- Betting on the survival of the media industry is a serious risk. I advise investing elsewhere.
They've even got the style down.
I have a VMWare installation that works perfectly. Every time I start VMWare it bugs me that there is a newer version. I went ahead and said okay to that message. It went ahead and upgraded me to the new version. That I don't have a license for. So I get to uninstall the new version and reinstall (and re-license) the old version. It immediately starts bugging me to upgrade.
A-N-N-O-Y-I-N-G.
Annoy the customer into spending good money on new versions they don't need. If that's not the Microsoft way I don't know what is.
-Peter
VMware Server that is in Beta/RC candidate WAS VMware GSX Server a short while ago and that was a production ready solution....
sig goes here!
Sorry, I don't like feminazis.
Just wanted to say that I was giddy with glee to find that this article was tagged 'lunch'
there is no need to sign your posts. this isn't usenet. your username is right there above your post. stop it.
Over the last year or so, I've heard a lot of people in the industry talk about how VMware is fighting a losing battle against Microsoft in the server virtualization market. Really though, I don't see Microsoft beating VMware anytime soon. Here's why:
First, I don't think anyone in their right mind is ever going to truely believe that Microsoft can be entirely agnostic when it comes to what OS you run in a virtualization layer. I just can't see the Linux crowd ever fully buying into the notion that Microsoft will support Linux as a virtual server with the same zealous dedication as they'll support virtualization of Windows servers. We've all seen too many instances in the past where Microsoft has teaked some application to take advantage of their inside knowledge of Windows, at the expense of some other vender's application or operating system. I can't imagine, given this track record, that Microsoft will continue to resist the temptation to shaft everyone else in the virtualization market, ensuring that Windows continues to dominate. This idea alone will seriously retard Microsoft's ability to compete with VMware. I doubt that anyone at VMware really gives a rat's ass what you run in ESX server; Microsoft, on the other hand, will never be able to make the same claim.
Additionally, as I see it, there's also little advantage for Microsoft to expand the number of operating systems they support under their own virtualization layer. Every time they add support for an additional OS running in the virtualization layer, it gives their current customers more choices to run some other operating system that *isn't* Windows. Sooner or later, someone on the Windows server sales team is going to figure that out, potentially putting preasure on the virtualization team to do a half-assed job with anything that doesn't sport a Microsoft logo. Ultimately, I predict that this is going to ensure that Microsoft's virtual server offerings will be the most limited in the market. VMware, of course, won't be bound by the same demands. Every time they expand support for additional operating systems, it makes their products that much more attractive to buyers.
Finally, I suspect that Microsoft will decide at some point in the future that what they really want to do is to build virtualization into the Windows operating system itself. This is the only strategy that makes sense in the long-term. It keeps customers buying Windows while answering the need for server consolidation/management that virtualization brings to the table. In the end, it will put distance between what Microsoft offers and what VMware offers, leaving the independant OS virtualization market squarely in the hands of VMware.
Recently, I was chosen to give a dog and pony show of MSVS R2. I've used VMWare for years and thought it would be good to 're-discover' something from Connectix, er, Microsoft. (I used VPC for Mac back in the v2 days).
While testing, I noticed some serious flaws using MSVS-R2 on Win2003R2:
-Absolutely no 64 bit host support. Even after I installed the 64 bit versions of 2003 Server R2 and MSVS R2.
-Several attempts to install Linux guests failed 100% of the time. Tried Suse 9.1 and 9.3, and Fedora 4 and 5. The CD would spin at about the 1% installed mark, and stay there for infinity. Thinking the DVD drive (on the brand new Optiplex GX620) was having issues, I plugged in an external DVD drive. Problem is, the problem happened again at the same place. Took the disks out, headed to my VMWare Server, installed SuSE 9.3 in about 55 minutes.
-The Remote console feature relies on port 5900. Yep, VNC based.
-The web control panel lacks the easy to use VMWare interface.
What is good about the product is that it's FREE! But, my research proves that you get what you pay for.
I'm sticking with VMWare for the forseeable future. It's saved me at least $25,000 in my department alone over the last 3 years. It only makes sense to stick with a winning solution.
And couple that with an article I read over at Network World, that the latest beta of Longhorn server, still does not have the Hypervisor technology for users to test. AND this won't be released until at LEAST the end of 2007. People need solutions now, not 2 years from now.
VMWare is doing a lot of right things, I applaud them.
Come on guys. Seriously. "Lunch"? Tagging was supposed to use humans to actually process what's important. Somehow I can't believe that slashdotters have coded a broken AI to tag articles for them.
"Lunch"? This article has anything to do with "lunch"? Give me a break.
It's nice to see that Microsofts whole "Its not ours, we don't profit from we why should we acknowledge it's existence" attitude is really starting to hurt it more than ever. I can't use msn's video because I don't/can't have Internet explorer, and on the virtualization side, I'm sure a big reason it isn't taking off is because it won't install to Linux or BSD. Most people that are interested in virtualization, as far as I know, are Linux and BSD users wanting to run Windows. If Microsoft had a virtual environment ported to Linux or BSD, I would try it. Maybe I would use it... but probably not. It would at least grab my attention.
VMWare will run on Linux permitting multiple Linux, Windows, etc Virtual Machines. MS Virtual Server only runs on Windows and although it can then run a Linux virtual machine, I don't really see people doing that.
I like VMware I really do,
.deb installation package instead of tar.gz or rpm (admittedly tar.gz works ok in ubuntu I just wonder what its done to my package management).
:)
It's letting me get rid of windows as my primary OS, instead now I can use ubuntu as default and only run windows when I haven't a convenient alternative.
Maybe some of the VMware people reading here could answer a few questions?
1) any plans to make a
2)Are there any plans to improve support for OSX in a virtual machine, (graphically it's a bit sluggish compared to native on the same hardware) on the otherhand adding a network controller to the VM as NAT gave network access to OSX as a wired network card (even though it was wireless in reality
3) any chance of VMware workstation being made freely available for a single vm or some other limited use.
I wouldn't want to see VMware cut its own throat but it seems the money for them is in commercial servers not an individual trying to break thier windows habit.
4)which is quicker windows in a vm hosted on windows or windows in a vm hosted on linux?
ubuntu and VMware make a great combination, it's something that should be tried by any windows user, who wants to escape the limitations of windows but needs windows compatability (at least initially) although ubuntu and remote desktop is another working alternative (video is slow thou).
Anyway to any of the VMWare team reading this you guys rock.
Blarney Quality Restaurant, Plants
While VMware GSX Server is certainly a better product, it's ESX Server (with its addons) that is in a completely different league to anything Microsoft offers. Further, now that VMware has released VM Infrastructure 3, Microsoft just got smacked down. Hard. Each VM can now use up to 4 CPUs and 16GB RAM. As far as performance goes, on average, you will get 6-8 VMs running per physical CPU core, although you should outfit each server with twice as much RAM as you expect it's workload to require.
Most techs are now familiar with basic single-box virtualisation, but aren't familiar with the virtual infrastructure offerings. It's here that VMware is truly revolutionising the commodity x86 server space. Without the VM Infrastructure concept, but using virtualisation you're effectively trading off reliability for utilisation efficiency. With VM Infrastructure you're gaining both. Let me explain.
Picture this: hundreds of VMs scattered around dozens of physical servers. Under VM Infrastructure, any time a given server's resources start to struggle with the load, the VMware software automatically and seamlessly migrates some of the VMs to another server that has resources to spare. When local server diagnostics identify that a critical piece of hardware is on the way out, all VMs are automatically and seamlessly shifted to other available servers. All this while allowing you to specify per-server policies on minimum and maximum resources (CPUs, CPU time, RAM, storage capacity, disk I/O, network bandwidth, network I/O, etc). This is possible because VMs interact with virtual hardware devices rather than the underlying hardware. This means you can most a running instance from one physical server to another and there are no hardware differences visible to the guest OS.
Basically, you not only ensure that you don't have idle servers sitting around, but you actually increase your availability by mitigating hardware failures and levelling resources throughout your pool of servers when load for given VMs increases.
This works by having all storage on a SAN. This means you don't have wasted disk sitting at individual servers. It also makes your storage subsystem extremely reliable and scalable while simultaneously amortising it's cost across multiple servers. The cost of storage goes down on a per-server basis while the reliability of your storage goes up. It also means your individual servers can have a smaller form-factor as you don't need any disk space on nodes save what's required to boot the virtualisation layer.
Using VMs can make backups much, much cheaper to implement. VMs are just files waiting to be copied to media.
If you don't think that's enough (it was for me!), think of how much easier and cheaper disaster recovery becomes. You just need to replicate SAN-to-SAN and your entire server pool is effectively mirrored offsite. In the event of disaster you can simply disable all non-critical VMs (e.g. DEV, TEST, UAT and low-priority PROD), so you don't need to mirror your (now smaller) server pool at the backup site, just enough to bring up the critical production services. In the event of a disaster you've always got the option of then buying additional servers to host non-critical VMs as time permits. Since it's a SAN that's required for storage, if you're not too concerned about non-critical VMs, you can simply keep them on a separate LUN to the critical ones and not replicate that. In the event of a disaster, you can order more disks, and in the meantime you save on SAN-to-SAN replication traffic costs and bandwidth.
Finally, and this is a key selling point to infrastructure staff and customers alike, a SAN-based virtual infrastructure allows extremely rapid deployment of new servers. Let's say a project manager contacts the service desk with a request to provision two new environments (TEST and UAT) for a new development project, each with a webserver, an application server and a database server. The service desk sources the software licenses (either from a pool of spares or
"They understand that someday they will have to ditch the entire spaghetti code base that is Windows(TM)."
I'm sure that MS's competitors (including OSS) look forward to that day. On the other hand, the idea of MS's formidable programmers writing brand-new code without the legacy of the 8088 PC platform and years of legacy applications to deal with should scare the crap out of their competitors. They've been fighting with their left hand for years.
This memegraph shows a rapid increase in interest in virtualization since mid-2005 -
y =virtualization_meme
y =virtualization_meme_ver_3_0
http://www.realmeme.com/roller/page/realmeme?entr
Here's how VMWare and Microsoft stand in that increased interest.
VMWare shows a mild upturn while Microsoft shows a mild downturn.
http://www.realmeme.com/roller/page/realmeme?entr
Parallels is not in the same league as VMware. The Parallels Workstation/Desktop product is similar to on old version of VMware workstation. More importantly Parallels dosen't have any products for servers. VMware has two powerfull server products and software to properly manage it all.
Obviously neither of you know what a "tossed salad" is...and you may not want to know!
I loaded a demo install of UnixWare 7 using VMware server running under RedHat Enterprise 4 today. It works but I can't stop washing my hands.
Forgive me. I did it to support a client with an old system experiencing serious problems..
Back when Microsoft purchased virtualPc I thought it was in many ways a superior product to vmware. Now that Microsoft decided to remove some of the best features and change the program to fit their way of doing things. It has given VMWare time to catch in some of the areas it was behind and become much better than Virtual PC in other areas.
Their customers do.
When one company yoinks business right out from under another company's nose, then the latter company is losing.
Unless it's Microsoft. That's not called "Eating Microsoft's lunch". That's called "doing Microsoft's research for them".
"No problem. I have the capacity to do infinite work so long as you don't mind that my quality approaches zero."-Dilbert
The problem with eating Microsoft's lunch is that it often leads to indigestion or worse.
They have a record of buying out smaller companies that build a better mouse trap. If that doesn't work, they'll hire a bunch of programmers and grind out a product that is almost as good and then release a new operating system that excludes the competetion.
When you are competing with a large, hungry predator, then it's not a good idea to arouse their ire.
Is that a SCSI connector or are you just glad to see me?
Longhorn server will have a virtualization layer built-in, with hypervisor and all. It is pretty neat, actually. The hypervisor binary was arund 40K last time I talked with someone from the dev team (~2? months ago).
It'll only work on x64, not on IA64 or x86, though.
First, I love VMWare. Been a user since the first release.
But it has a couple of problems. One problem is that it is not effective for audio software, neither for synthesis programs nor for low-latency recording. I realize this isn't the main purpose of VMWare, but it is my primary application for Windows. I understand the problems, especially with things like ASIO drivers that need to be down to the metal, but I still think it would be nice to have a low-latency audio interface, and really high performance usb2.0 and fireware connectivity. Others have itches to scratch in 3-D graphics and such, but music production is mine.
The other big problem is economic. In order to use WindowsXP or anything else with WPA, I need a separate licence for the instance under VMWare (different for EACH VM!), and another licence for the WindowsXP instance in the dual boot. This is an unreasonable restriction, in my opinion.
-fb Everything not expressly forbidden is now mandatory.
Slashdot is the same as it ever was.
I think someone messed up your last eye firmware upgrade.
emt 377 emt 4
People do not seem to understand...
Just as this article and all the anti-MS trolling in here demonstrates, people really just don't get it.
VMWare is not a 'competitor' to MS in the traditional sense, in fact the two products have a vastly different target base and vastly different lineage.
The MS technology is this, a way for Server Administrators to consolidate servers and outdated OS and technology on to new hardware. Specifically MS's newer Server technologies. PERIOD.
VMWare has a vastly different Market as it is used more in testing environments and also in the non server industry more than the Microsoft product.
Sure, they both hit on a common thread, but that doesn't give one a superior mark over the other in areas they are not designed to for.
Let's be realistic, a large portion of the VMWare market is running Hosts on non-Microsoft OSes. MS's Virtual Server is a Host on a single OS.
VMWare is a cross platform tool that will 'eat MS's lunch', especially in the *nix markets.
But what MS VS does is allow companies to take older NT4,Win2k, and even *nix OS that all ran fine on 1Ghz systems and drop them onto a new 4Ghz 64bit Server running Windows 2003 or Longhorn Server.
MS is only a corporate product in this respect, it is also going to run the MS OSes in the clients a bit faster, it is also going to Host a bit faster as it is designed specifically for these target OS platforms. MS also has invested heavily in Network performance from the clients, and Dropping an existing Win2K server on a new Win2003 Server in a VS environment will still meet the speed and needs that the original server provided, yet give companies a path to move up to Win2003 server in smaller increments.
Ok, I think we all should pretty much know that. But here is where VS wins in the Server Market. It not only allows Companies to migrate and upgrade their servers to the new MS OS more frequently, but will allow these same companies that have invested in a *nix to move that *nix over to the Win2003 platform during the transistion. So even if MS VS isn't the best VM technology in the world, it is good enough that companies will use it and MS will leverage it for 'Virtual Hosting' in the future all the way to increasing market share for Windows 2003 Server, which is where VS wins, even if not for itself directly.
We all remember the shift to Virtual Hosting of HTTP servers and IIS was a big push of this as it made this transition for companies very easy. Now imagine the next shift where people can get full server Virtual Hosting and the Hosting company only has to provide one Decked out server running serveral copies of whatever OS the clients want. Yes this is already starting to become an industry move, but with the new virtualization in hardware and supporting software technologies included on the server for free with 'leaner' licensing, MS will push the Windows Server Platform into this market as an 'enclosed' solution to meet these needs.
Maybe we could start tagging stories referencing MS internal usability studies with "dogfood". And if their internal study showed they were behind their competitors in some area, we could tag it both "lunch" and "dogfood".
What your describing is simply the ENTIRE POINT OF HAVING A VM IN THE FIRST PLACE.
Minus the pro-MS VS stuff it's just a generic explaination of why you want to have a virtual machine environment.
The POINT, which your missing, is that Vmware server does everything that Microsoft's VS stuff does... But does it BETTER. It has better performance, much better UI, better scalability, higher compatability. Not only that it has a lot of features that VS doesn't have.
Also instead of just supporting one platform they support many.
And don't get the Vmware workstation stuff confused with the ESX, GSX, player, and server editions.
And if you don't understand why Vmware stomps all over Microsoft's VS stuff then you realy never seen it realy being taken advantage of in large Enterprise environments.
it just takes time ... time is money and they have lots.
MS will leverage segments of the market and product verticals to maintain a monopoly/oligopoly (60+% of the market) for at least another 20 years in my view.
Perhaps longer.
But it still doesn't fix Microsoft's broken OS, as the article implies. Sure, I can run VMware and have fun with Windows running as a virtual machine instead of giving up my ability to use my prefered OS, at the same time. But it really doesn't repair BSODs, security flaws, and other plan nonsense in the MS OS. However, snapshots do give me a bit better protection, because if something blows up in MS Windows, I can just roll back to a safe state.
Similar meaning to "Clean their clock".
FEAR ME ! Hate me love me
Still way too slow for the majors, I don't care what anyone else says. VM (x86) sucks !
So, you're saying Ballmer is a tosser?
/me ducks
Ignore this signature. By order.
More like eating their SALAD - which has soft browny bits..
THIS IS THE INTERNET. PLEASE PICK UP YOUR SERIOUS BUSINESS SUIT AT THE FRONT COUNTER.
IMHO MS bought VPC to offer their clients a way to continue running legacy NT servers AND upgrade to new servers (with the attached license). what else VPC runs also is not what MS cares much about. I don't see them even competing with VMWare..
SEO Test: TIGI und SEBASTIAN - Online Shop - V
you eat pieces of shit for breakfast?
No... I...
Go Shooter!
You work in marketting and you say things like and just as good as (better than?) MicroSoft Virtual Server
And to make it even worse, you're saying this about a product that just wipes the floor with Virtual server. Be more positive man!
I have never read a shallower article. Sure VMWare is faster, but they have been around for much longer. MS Virtual Server was originally developed by some other company that MS took over. It's got a vastly superior API that makes app dev a lot easier. For VMWare you would have to buy the expensive Virtual Center, the C API that VMWare is releasing with their free server is in deep deep Beta. It's the usual MS strategy - make things easier for developers,ISV's, and partners first and worry about performance later. The flurry of moves that VMWare is making in the last three months is indication that they are far more aware of the very real threat from MS Virtual server than the average Slashdot Idiot.
Maybe we could start tagging stories referencing MS internal usability studies with "dogfood". And if their internal study showed they were behind their competitors in some area, we could tag it both "lunch" and "dogfood". ;-)
;)
Which perfectly fits a full time FOSS developer's diet.
USE HOT GRITS WITH STATUE OF NATALIE PORTMAN (NAKED AND PETRIFIED)
Microsoft not only suffer from a serious case of NIH, meaning that they will always use own technologies for eveything, they're also scared by the thought of anyone else using their stuff - effectively Microsoft is simultaneously pursuing an isolationist policy and trying to get a foothold in every market.
It's understandable that they feel they have to resort to unfair tactics - if they competed fairly their isolationism would make them a perpetual fringe player in every market they don't already control. Expansionist isolationism doesn't work if you can't strong-arm the rest of the world into allowing you to bend the rules.
USE HOT GRITS WITH STATUE OF NATALIE PORTMAN (NAKED AND PETRIFIED)
Actually Microsoft does offer breaks on licensing. Specifically, run Virtual Server on Windows 2003 Enterprise, and you can run 4 virtual instances of Windows 2003 Enterprise with no additional licensing fees.o ct05/10-10virtualizationlicensing.mspx
Paul
From http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/features/2005/
First, we are licensing by running instance, which is to say the number of images, installations and/or copies of the original software stored on a local or storage network. Instead of licensing every inactive or stored virtual instance of a Windows Server System product, customers can now create and store an unlimited number of instances, including those for back-up and recovery, and only pay for the maximum number of running instances at any given time. Second, we are providing easier deployment across servers. Customers can now move active instances from one licensed server to another licensed server without limitation, as long as the physical server is licensed for that same product. So, customers will now be able to store a set of instances on a storage network and deploy any instance to a rack server or blade server that has an available license for that server software. Third, we are providing customers with greater flexibility with Windows Server System products that are currently licensed by processor, such as Microsoft SQL Server, BizTalk Server, Internet Security Accelerator Server and others. Customers can now stack multiple virtual instances on a machine by licensing for the number of virtual processors being used, rather than for all of the physical processors on the server. Lastly, we recognize customers are using virtualization to consolidate servers. Therefore, we now have a policy for Windows Server 2003 R2 Enterprise Edition that allows customers to run up to four running virtual instances on one server at no additional cost. And we'll go further with the Datacenter Edition of Windows Server "Longhorn," the code name for the next version of Windows Server, by allowing customers to run unlimited virtual instances on one server at no additional charge
I don't mind if you mod me down but why don't you use "Flamebait" or "Troll". You just look stupid when you use "overrated" on an unmoderated post.
MS is coming out with some pretty good things these days- only google's marketing them faster. Check out this page on virtualization!
It's not the first time I've heard your claim, and it certainly won't be the last. Microsoft Windows does not Just Work no matter what hardware and drivers you use. Granted, both can be the faults of any OS's "problems", but MS Windows is on a whole other level, the software is broken.
Naw the 'dotter's with really big drives have more than a few with the last names of .vob, .vcd, .mpg, .avi, .rm and a few others as well.
Matthew