OStatic

Last year, following a crash in its share price and the replacement of its CEO with a seasoned Microsoft executive, I wrote about the perils that virtualization titan VMware faces. The problems come from two trends: 1) open source virtualization offerings; and 2) free virtualization within operating systems. From the free virtualization project Xen to the virtualization that Microsoft, Sun, Red Hat and others offer in operating systems,VMware's proprietary strategy looked mighty shaky. Today, VMware made what I consider the shrewdest move it could: launching an open source client for virtual desktops.

Although several open source virtualization applications exist, and some proprietary players are taking a bruising, it's still common for businesses deploying virtualization to face vendor lock-down and inability to move their application workloads between environments. However, Citrix, which owns XenSource and is behind the Xen project, has just announced a novel spin on the problem, to arrive as a preview in September. Project Kensho will distribute open tools for deploying virtualized application workloads. Applications will be runnable under the Open Virtual Machine (OVF) format, and IT managers and others will be able to run them across Citrix XenServer, Microsoft Windows Server 2008 Hyper-V and VMWare ESX virtual environments.

Lately, we've written quite a bit about virtualization, including Red Hat's entry into the race, and virtual data center strategies.ﾠ Today, on our sister site GigaOm, Stacey Higginbotham has an interview with Citrix CTO Simon Crosby. Crosby was the former CTO of open source virtualization company XenSource (which Citrix acquired). He discusses Xen, Microsoft, VMware, cloud computing, and more. Check it out.