Microsoft, Citrix and VMware will maintain their competitive positions in terms of planned deals closed in the second half of 2008, according to solution providers surveyed by IPED. However, Citrix and VMware will grab market share from Microsoft, solution providers responded.
It is no surprise that Citrix and Microsoft came out so strong in the survey despite VMware's server virtualization market share, said Dave Spear, vice president of sustainability at Istonish, a Denver-based solution provider.
"It would sound fishy if the survey results were based on server virtualization only," Spear said. "But if you talk server and application virtualization, then Microsoft and Citrix will come out on top."
Citrix has had application virtualization technology almost since its founding, and its XenServer server virtualization technology has been catching up to that of VMware, Spear said.
Meanwhile, Microsoft is trying to leverage its Hyper-V server virtualization technology, but still has a lot of work to do to catch up with VMware. "Hyper-V is still complex," Spear said. "But it's free. And in the meantime, VMware is trying to develop applications, but it still has a lot of work to do."
