Earlier today Microsoft announced that they would be offering for free Virtual PC 2004 SP1, at first glance you would think this would be a great thing that would eventally force competitiors like VMWare to also offer their product for free. However, after thinking about this for a while maybe Microsoft has an alternate funding model in mind for this "Free" download.
See, while Virtual PC may be a "Free" download you don't get a copy of Windows with that "Free" download. So what does that mean? Well if you want to be legal, and we all do, right? You need to go right out after downloading your "Free" software and buy a copy of Windows to install in that VM you just created. Oh and guess what Office too, and any other software you intend to run in it.
In the fine print of todays press release you will also notice that people selecting "Enterprise" edition, basically your SA and EA customers, will get the ability to run up to four copies of the operating systems in Virtual PC. It wasn't clear from that release if the same thing would hold true for Ultimate edition SKU. Obviously Microsoft will continue to find ways to drive value in the Ultimate SKU and this just might be another feather it puts in that cap.
How will someone like VMWare compete in a model like this where there isn't a incentive for them to give it away free? Sure they make a better product, but it is hard to fight "Free".
Posted
Jul 12 2006, 09:18 PM
by
Josh Phillips
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