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Does VMware Need to Nip/Tuck Its Prices?

Reporter’s Notebook: Can the newer server virtualization software vendors chip away at VMware’s huge market share? Will VMware respond by slashing prices to keep customers?Those are two of the questions I had after a briefing with Virtual Iron late last year. For those who aren’t familiar with Virtual Iron, the company is a relative startup compared to the entrenched VMware.

Before December, Virtual Iron virtualized strictly Linux-based servers. Unlike the dominant VMware, Virtual Iron didn’t have a leg to stand on virtualizing Windows.

Interesting, but as with most things, getting your product into a large organization is difficult, vmware has managed perceptions very well, it has market exposure, it has the support areas, with support agreements, and all the other grown up things.  Microsoft will have competition but the typical enterprise organization will try Microsoft Virtual Center and maybe use it as a negotiating angle when deciding who to go with.

It’s often the technologists, the ‘geeks’ that get a product, try it, float with the boss and say can we try this, which is where I think Xen has been doing well, Virtual Iron, though cheaper looks just as good as vmware, but it’s not always a cost thing.  The ability to escalate a problem, or ‘get a guy in’ from the company is an important thing when looking at a product for production, whether it’s production now or in the future.

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