Cutting through the FUD: Facts you should know about Hyper-V and System Center
Wednesday, December 23rd, 2009Microsoft has an interesting blogpost which they hope will help fight back against what they regard as unofficial FUD campaign against HyperV and their associated virtualization products:
It’s written by Edwin Yuen, Senior Technical Product Manager. Some Pro-VMware folks might find it a bit “kettle calling the pot black” of Microsoft to accuse others of FUD. After all Microsoft haven’t been shy of producing their own FUD in recent years. You might remember that Yuen was the co-presenter in the now notorious “Microsoft Myth Busters: Top 10 VMware Myths” - that claimed VMware introduced more “layers” than the MS model.
What’s interesting about Yuen’s blogpost is how conciliatory it is, compared to the more recent content spats – which saw VMware & Microsoft at each others throats on whole raft of features and issues. So for example Yeun states in the blogpost
“At the most basic level, you can deploy Hyper-V and Microsoft Virtualization side by side with any VMware installation. Virtualization is a growing technology and there are plenty of opportunities in most business to deploy both hypervisors. It is NOT an all or nothing proposition.”
To be honest I think the may be some merits in Yuen’s argument – that there maybe indeed a strategic use of Microsoft Virtualization or even Citrix Xen – for certain applications. I have customers coming to me with arguments along the line of – should we be using VMware for Tier1 applications, and “good enough” virtualization for the lower end. The only trouble I have with this perspective is… Firstly, running multiple environments which overlapping functionally in itself is not free from cost. Secondly, I think Yuen’s suggestion is essentially an argument designed to leverage a Microsoft deployment into a VMware shop – in real effort to squeeze out VMware altogether. No disrespect to guy personally, but I think he’s been a bit disingenuous when postulates a side-by-side installation. If Microsoft is worth its salt. If any company is worth it salt. It will actually want to usurp of the competition. If you like this precisely how MS successfully defeated Novell. So MS says:
“Look were not out to get you to remove Novell VMware. No, our technologies work along side your existing Novell VMware environment. Our technologies are complementary, you don’t have to get rid of Novell VMware. It’ is NOT an all or nothing proposition.”
That’s all very reasonable. It’s not that is bad thing – but I’m interested in the realities rather than just PR. We all know Microsoft want piece of the virtualization pie. The competition is good for the customer at the end of the day. If VMware had no competitors we would be a very difficult situation.
Yuen goes on to criticize what he calls – “clickbox-its”. The way some pro-VMware types enumerate a dizzying list of features to demonstrate that other products (like MS Virtualization) are some not “Enterprize Ready”. This is something I call “Featurism”. Where products become bloated monsters overstuffed with features that customers/users hardly ever use…like [FILL IN THE BLANK]. 
Of course, all software vendors use such features to differentiate themselves from there competitors all the time. It’s a disease systemic to the IT generally – and to world of consumer electronics. All of these companies need to construct some kind of value-add proposition and try to construct some kind of USP to differentiate themselves from the competitors. That’s all fine and dandy – the trouble is it that its left to us as consummers to in our sometimes clumsy way to work out if
a.) The claims are true
b.) if those differentiators are significant as they tell us they are
c.) is worth the premium in terms of licensing costs – that they attach to those features.
In my experience – many companies spend a truck load of cash on software/hardware – and then only use 10% of its functionality. This happens NOT because they don’t need the other 90%, but they have less investment in the skills & abilities of the folks who drive and manage those technologies. They are merely ignorant of other 90% of what the technology can do for them – and they just accept the defaults and core functionality. In the average IT shop you’re expected to know 10% of everything. The trouble with this as the poet Alexander Pope once said is “A little knowledge is a dangerous thing.”
It’s no accident I’ve dedicated the last 17 years of my IT career in some kind of training/educational role. The disappointing thing I’ve discovered is – that many companies seem to put more value in depreciating assets such as hardware/software – than they do with their appreciating assets – the folks they employe. You see this in every major economic downturn like the one were are experiencing. The first thing that companies cut is their staff development when their bottom line is under threat.
Anyway, anyone who’s ever seen me instructor or ready my various books/guides – will know that I’m as equally interested in what technology does when it works, as what it does when its broken. Yuen makes a very valid point about “clickbox-its” but I think its problem that all vendors create for themselves. When was the last time you heard software vendors say “Here’s a brand new version of our product – and by the way – there are NO new features”?
What really strikes me about this blogpost – is that if you read between the lines – this is a tacit admission that there is a feature-gap between MS virtualization and VMware virtualization. The line that’s being pitched – is that this gap doesn’t ergo mean that MS virtualization can be dismissed as a sub-standard product. My prediction is that in the next 5-10 years VMware will have to work increasingly harder to get their value-add proposition across to the market – in precisely the same way that Citrix had to with their MetaFrame/Presentation product when it was being compared (unfavorably from a cost perspective) to the Microsoft Terminal Services offering. Many back in late-90′s incorrectly predicted Citrix’s downfall back then.
That, my friend, is the nature of the market and competition.
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