- Posted by cameron on August 7, 2008
There's lots of new products heading towards your volume licensing download site over the next few weeks.
First, Microsoft Hyper-V has been released to manufacturing and will be in the channel shortly for acquisition and implementation. While data center virtualization is a new hallmark of Windows Server 2008, that's not the only virtualization technology coming to market. A couple of recent acquisitions, Kidaro and Calista are en route as well. Kidaro's application virtualization technology will be made available as part of the Microsoft Desktop Optimization Pack (MDOP) update as Microsoft Enterprise Desktop Virtualization. Calista's 3D rendering virtualization has not been given a full public plan of record. However, since Calista focuses on presentation virtualization, it is most likely that we will see it in a Terminal Server update in the near future. I'm betting in the Windows Server 2008 R2 timeframe. If you have budget for checked bags, you can fly out to Seattle for the Microsoft Virtualization Launch. Click here for more details.
Don't sit down yet. As a data platform guy, I am thrilled that SQL Server 2008 has also been released to manufacturing this week. I thought for sure that we would raise the licensing cost on SQL Server 2008 with all of the new features and enhancements that went into this release. However, the SQL Product Group chose to increase the value of SQL Server 2008 versus the cost. In a sluggish economy, value for money becomes a top-of-mind issue for everyone. You can learn more about SQL Server 2008 and upcoming launch events here.
Check back over the coming weeks for demos and more updates on our Virtualization and Data Platform innovations. If you have already been running pre-release candidates in your production environment, let us know.