Microsoft Taps Xen to Help Build Longhorn's Hypervisor
by Alex Woodie

Microsoft and XenSource announced this week that they will work together on the development of the hypervisor for Windows Server "Longhorn." The odd pairing of XenSource, an advocate of open-source software development, and Microsoft, which in the past has denounced open-source as a threat to intellectual property, shows that Microsoft is serious about ensuring out-of-the-box interoperability of virtualization products. READ MORE >

Intel Aims Dual-Core Itaniums at RISC, Mainframe Servers
by Timothy Prickett Morgan

After about 18 months of delays and having some features stripped out of it and its clock speed reduced, Intel has nonetheless been able to get its dual-core "Montecito" Itanium processors, dubbed the 9000 series, out the door of its chip fabs and moving into high-end machines from key players in the enterprise server racket.READ MORE >

Microsoft Reports Growth in SaaS Delivery Model
by Alex Woodie

It looks like Microsoft is catching the Software as a Service (SaaS) bug. A week ago it unveiled the pending delivery of CRM Live, and this week at the HostingCon 2006 conference, the software giant launched a new release of Windows Hosting, its software package that allows third-party hosting companies to run Windows for their clients. Microsoft also reported growth across its hosting segments. READ MORE >

VMware Delivers Eponymous Freebie Hypervisor, Sets Support Prices
by Timothy Prickett Morgan

Back in February, the VMware subsidiary of storage vendor EMC changed the name of its GSX Server virtualization hypervisor to VMware Server, added some new features, put out a beta program, and said that it would eventually offer a production version as freeware with commercial-grade support. Late last week, VMware Server went commercial and VMware put out its price list. READ MORE >