I hate to say I told you so, but I told you so. I said that Microsoft would find a way to unfairly restrict or cripple VMware. I just didn’t think Microsoft would be do direct.

Microsoft has changed their licensing terms limiting how you can virtualize Windows in an attempt to force customers to use their technology. These changes do not directly state that Windows cannot be run inside a VMware Virtual Machine, but they do limit those create in Microsoft’s VHD format. They also attempt to limit Desktop Virtualization.

In response VMware has published a whitepaper about this. I think the summary states VMware’s case very well:

Microsoft is trying to restrict customers’ flexibility and freedom to choose virtualization software by limiting who can run their software and how they can run it. Microsoft is lever aging its ownership of the market leading operating system and numerous applications that are market leaders in their respective categories (Exchange, SQL Server, Active Directory) to drive customers to use Microsoft virtualization products. Their tactics are focused on software licensing and distribution terms (for SQL Server, Exchange, Windows Server, Vista) and through the anis and formats for ritualized Windows.

In particular, Microsoft does not have key virtual infrastructure capabilities (like motion), and they are making those either illegal or expensive for customers; Microsoft doesn’t have virtual desktop offerings, so they are denying it to customers; and Microsoft is moving to control this new layer that sits on the hardware by forcing their specifications and anis on the industry. Included below in this document are explanations with supporting details of some of these specific areas.

Virtualization opens up new enabling models for IT customers and technology vendors. To fully achieve this vision, the industry must ensure fundamental market choice and ecosystem interoperability. Microsoft operating systems and applications are both market dominant and they deliver value to customers. However, customers and vendors require freedom of choice to implement and deliver applications and operating systems from any vendor with any chosen virtual hardware platform. Microsoft is not acting in customers’ best interests when they attempt to force an integrated virtual hardware/operating system/application stack for their operating system and applications. Customers require an “any to any” interoperability model where Microsoft application stacks can run freely with licensing, open APIs, and support equivalence on non-Microsoft virtual hardware to Microsoft’s own virtualization technologies.

The NY Times published an article about this last weekend. In the article, VMware founder and Cheif Scientist Mendel Rosenblum states “There are certainly some analogies here to what Microsoft did with Netscape”.

This seems to echo concerns I’ve raised in the past:

http://www.vi411.org/2006/09/19/virtually-unstoppable.html

http://www.vi411.org/2007/01/31/1996-browser-wars.html

The worst part about this is that Microsoft is still being allowed to strangle competition because of their monopoly. Competition makes the market stronger, Microsoft just takes the market.

You can read the NY Times article here.

You can read VMware’s whitepaper here.

This is just hilarious! This guy is trying to use Vista’s Speech Recognition software to write a Perl Script with no luck.

I know that I have been very suspicious of Microsoft’s recent moves into the virtualization space, citing what they’ve done in the past to companies like Netscape. Having said that, I believe competition in the marketplace is a good thing. In the end, I’d hope that customers would have a choice of virtualization platforms.

I bring this up because I recently found an interesting video on Microsoft’s website that discusses their vision of virtualization. You can view the video here:

Since I was migrating to a new host, in all my infinate wisdom I figured it was as good a time as any to upgrade from Wordpress 2.0.4 to 2.1.1.

Most of the process was seemless. I really have to give credit to the Wordpress team, installing and upgrading wordpress is a snap. However, due to my recent migration I had some issues.

Any page in the admin panel that related to adding or editing a post or link wouldn’t open. I found out this was due to an error in my database. The fields for “id” were not set to auto-increment. Once I corrected this everything started working.

The other thing was fixing my template. Some of the functions were changed for this new version.

However, I think that everything is FINALLY 100% working. Now, if I could just leave well enough alone…..