Will the Oracle-Sun merger prove a threat to VMware?

After months of waiting, the European Commission has finally concluded its antitrust investigation of the Oracle/Sun acquisition, coming down on the side of Oracle and opening the door to the conclusion of its $7.4 billion deal. With that decision, Oracle was finally able to disclose its virtualization road map and show how the company plans to integrate its products between the two company’s portfolios.

Oracle kicked off a daylong event to talk about the acquisition and its plans, and it did so with a new tagline that seems to tell much of the new story: Software. Hardware. Complete.

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Between the two companies, Oracle and Sun offer a broad array of technologies for a virtual data center: server virtualization, desktop virtualization, operating system partitioning, hardware partitioning, servers, thin clients, storage, operating systems, and virtualization management software. The company seems to be showing its commitment in this area.

• Oracle will continue to develop and invest in Solaris
• Oracle will offer support for Linux, Windows, and Solaris guest operating systems
• Oracle Enterprise Manager will be able to provide single console management of two disparate virtualization platforms: Oracle VM on x86/x64 hardware and Solaris Containers and Logical Domains running on SPARC CMT
• Oracle will integrate Sun VirtualBox into the Oracle VM family as a tool for developers
• Oracle will provide an end-to-end VDI solution by bringing the Sun VDI Connection Broker inside Oracle VM Server
• Oracle will continue to deliver business applications as Oracle VM gold template images (also known as virtual appliances in the VMware world)
• Oracle will continue to make available the Sun Ray thin client product line as a secure endpoint device

During the kickoff presentation, Edward Screven, Oracle chief corporate architect, said that if you talk with IT folks, it becomes clear that virtualization is one of the most important technologies to them, and they plan on using it to get server consolidation, lower energy consumption, easier management, and lower labor costs in their environments. He admits that there are already several technologies on the market for doing virtualization — VMware among them.

Listening to Screven’s presentation, it was clear that Oracle was taking aim at VMware as its biggest threat in the market and that the company plans on taking it right to VMware.

To begin, Screven described the Oracle solution as very different from VMware’s, saying Oracle’s product is “pre-integrated with lots of very important technologies,” such as Linux, Solaris, hardware, storage, middleware, and database. With the addition of Sun, he believes Oracle is going to be able to deliver much, much more, adding, “We will have by far the most comprehensive solution set for virtualization, from desktop-to-server, including storage virtualization.”

As further proof in his case against VMware, he offered up the claim that his company will have integrated management of the entire stack, from the application down to bare metal, and Oracle would be able to provide one single source of support for it all: “These environments can be complex. But when something goes wrong, we will be able to fix the problem.”

If you thought the discussion would remain civil, think again. With all the FUD and back-and-forth comments being made between Microsoft, Citrix, and VMware last year, Screven started off 2010 by throwing out a zinger of his own when he said, “Our software is managed all together in one single place, Enterprise Manager. VMware is integrated with nothing. VMware is a point solution.”

Ouch! The claim doesn’t come off as entirely true, as VMware does integrate with other products, such as Vblock and the Cisco UCS.

Oracle is also going after VMware with another common attack method used by would-be virtualization platform competitors: price. Much like Citrix and Microsoft before, Oracle too is attempting to throw out price as a differentiator between its virtualization offering and VMware’s, saying Oracle VM is very cost effective and you can “download it and use it today for nothing, for zero, it’s free.” You pay only if you want support.

As an added dig against VMware, Screven tossed out, “We don’t charge you extra for basic virtualization features like live migration or high availability” — two features not found in VMware’s free product.

But words alone won’t get you additional market share in this tough competitive space. Oracle clearly needs to move quickly and offer action to back up its claims if it wants to become a major player in the virtualization market. With this latest announcement, Oracle and Sun join a growing trend of vendors integrating hardware and software to build out the dynamic data center or cloud. But the question remains: Is this what customers want right now? Or do they prefer best-of-breed solutions?

If 2009 was the year of Microsoft versus VMware, it very well could be that 2010 is shaping up to be the year of Oracle versus VMware. I wonder what Oracle’s presence will look like at this year’s VMworld as a competitor.

This story, “Will the Oracle-Sun merger prove a threat to VMware?,” was originally published at InfoWorld.com. Follow the latest developments in virtualization at InfoWorld.com.