Well, I thought I’d put my industry analyst hat on a try to do some quick thinking about why VMware have taken the decision they have. I also think that like the departure of Dianne Greene a couple of weeks ago – a whole new load of FUD will be generated. You know the internet/blogs are becoming a FUD Machine in its own right!

Here’s Mike’s take.

A. the decision has nothing to do with the departure of Dianne Greene – in fact it was probably her that was instrumental in ratifying the decision.

B, this is nothing to do with trying to recover VMware’s share price – it’s much to big a decision to make based on the flippance of the stock-market – and beside which A caused B, and therefore the order events would be illogical if A is true.

C. Is VMware is running scarred of Microsoft? Well, I wouldn’t use running scared but quite clearly, making the hypervisor free kinda of puts the spanners in the works for Microsoft HyperV. Not only is ESX better, its now free. Perhaps this will prompt MS to give away W2K8 Server Core for nothing? Of course, I’m joking!

D. This is a stab at the SMB market. Yes, it is but – I doubt VirtualCenter will be free – and without a legitatmate management tool the new offering will be little limited. There’s no solid information on VMware position. I’m guessing. Is this a problem. VirtualCenter for management only isn’t too expensive, and VMware will try to upsell the SMB to advanced features – using the free hypervisor as a foot-in-the-door strategy. Additionally, there are some ESX managers that are “free” such as HP VMM and IBM VMM…

E. What if I have already bought ESX3i at full price. The rumour is that they will be rebate for those customers.

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