Looking the Virtual Gift Horse in the mouth

There are some indications that Microsoft will release the next release of Microsoft Virtual Server, the VS 2005 R2 Enterprise absolutly free next week. Ain't competition grand? Remember that "R2" was actually Virtual Server SP1 that Microsoft got free beta testing for then decided to make it a for-pay product. Lot's of angered customers but the guys in Redmond didn't budge: "shoulda bought SA" Fast forward a few monts. Free Xen virtualization is picking up. Vmware released a free Vmware Server which is considered a superior product by almost everyone. Not just that but it also comes without the overhead of the Microsoft Windows Server license – it can run on top of Linux, free. Incentive to use a Microsoft solution: none. So when Virtual Server R2 launches I will perhaps be the only one on earth downloading it. I realize nobody cares and I am fine with that. However, our friends in Redmond should care and care a lot. I spoke to a Microsoft friend of mine about Virtual Server 2005 R2 and how people were upset about it not being free and his comment was "Oh well, what are they going to do – use Novell and Vmware?"; See how little it takes to displace Microsoft? Hopefully they learn, quickly. Microsoft Vista and Microsoft Office 12 will require a drastic amount of re-training… and if you're throwing a ton of money to retrain the workforce, upgrade hardware for Software.Next, virtualization of servers and apps is apparently free… I wonder how many people lose sleep in Redmond thinking about Vista launch becoming as big of a non-event as Virtual Server 2005 R2? Not that wild of an idea folks, how many of you though you'd get a free $5,000 virtualization server last March?