Microsoft Makes Another Move To Strengthen Its Positions On The Hosting Market

Posted By: Dimitar A. April 4, 2006

Microsoft will enable server owners who run their Microsoft’s Virtual Server 2005 R2 to use Linux OS on the same machine. This way the software giant makes another move to extend its positions on the web hosting market. The company’s Virtual Server 2005 R2 is a software that allows hosts to run multiple operating systems on one machine.

Microsoft said that it has made Virtual Server 2005 R2 a free download. The company had now charged either $99 for up to four physical processors or $199 for an unlimited number of processors. The announcement was made in conjunction with the LinuxWorld conference in Boston this week.

Virtualization technology is an important issue discussed in Linux conference. It is garnering growing interest from companies, because it allows a server to run multiple instances of an OS. This makes it easier for corporations to consolidate many applications on a single server and provides a level of reliability.

Two other software producers XenSource and Virtual Iron which sells support for open-source software Xen are on the way to discuss their strategies to go after leader in visualization software VMWare.

Analysts said Microsoft wouldn’t have a chanse if they didn’t make a decision to offer free download of its Virtual Server 2005 R2, which cost as much as $999 in December. Consumers can now download hosted virtualization product, VMware Server, for free. That leaves little place for a less mature Microsoft product that also costs more,” says News.com, quoting Gordon Haff, an analyst at Illuminata.

Microsoft announced it has developed software to simplify the installation of Linux distributions from Red Hat and Novell Suse, so they will run on Virtual Server 2005 R2 on Windows. In addition, Microsoft will provide technical support to customers running Windows and Linux side by side.

Microsoft Corp. has recently achieved contract with Godaddy, the worlds’s largest domain registar to transitioning 4.5 million domains to be hosted on Windows(R)-based hosting platform.

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About the Author

Dimitar A.
Dimitar is founder of the global Cloud & Infrastructure Hosting provider HostColor.com & European Cloud IaaS company RAX. He has two Decades-long experience in the web hosting industry and in building and managing Cloud computing infrastructure and IT ecosystems. Dimitar is also political scientist who has published books "The New American State" and "The New Polity". "The New American State" is one of the best current political books. It is focused on the change of the American political process. It offers a perspective on how the fourth industrial revolution, also called the Digital Revolution and Industry 4.0, marks the beginning of an era of deterritorialization.