VMware Sees the Open Source Threat
by Sam Dean - Sep. 17, 2008Comments (0)- Related Blog Posts
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At VMworld this week in Las Vegas, troubled virtualization company VMware has been tipping its hat on where it stands with regard to threats from open source virtualization and other proprietary players. As we've written before, open source virtualization and virtualization found for free under the hood in operating systems represent serious problems for VMware's proprietary business model. New CEO Paul Maritz has confirmed this week that the company has considered open sourcing its hypervisor, and there is more.
GigaOm did a nice recap last weekend, of the various shoes that have dropped as VMware's situation has become more serious. The company lost its CEO recently, saw its share price plummet, and Paul Maritz--a long-time Microsoft executive--was brought in as CEO.
Here are two telling quotes from Maritz this week, as reported by InfoWorld:
"We have thought about whether we want to open source ESX," (ESX is VMware's hypervisor.)
and...
"At this point in time, we don't support hypervisors other than our own, but it is something we look at. As soon as we've got our framework in full execution we'll come back and look at that question."Â (This came in response to a question about whether VMware might support open source virtualization offerings such as Xen.)
On top of this, Matt Asay has an interesting post up about VMware's most recent quarterly report which says that a "significant portion" of the company's technology may include open source. With Microsoft and Sun (along with Linux players) bundling virtualization with their server software, and ongoing improvements in open source virtualization offerings such as Xen, I've predicted before and I now predict more than ever that VMware has to radically change its business model.
Maritz, coming from Microsoft, definitely knows the threat of free offerings under the hood of operating systems. He also has to have the open source threat on his radar. Let's see how fast the company does the sensible thing and moves to embrace the new trends in virtualization. Rumors have already flown around that VMware might acquire Red Hat to arm it with an operating system. There are other scenarios, too, that could work for the company, but Maritz will need to decide what to do soon.
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