Microsoft’s march of commoditization continues

A little over a week ago, Microsoft offered up the release candidate of Search Server 2008 Express as a free download. The only difference between Express and the full-bore version of Search Server 2008 is the ability to run it across multiple servers for load balancing.

In fact, there’s not a significant amount of difference in functionality between Search Server Express and Google’s midrange search appliances, other than cost. So, as the Burton Group’s Guy Creese writes, Microsoft’s search server is a “game changer.”

He also notes, “The Google appliance pretty much comes in any color you want, as long as it’s black…Microsoft, by depending on partners, can offer an infinitely variable set of appliances.” Using Express, partners can move in and build SMB and midmarket solutions for customers.

It looks like Microsoft is taking the same route with virtualization as well. The Windows Server 2008 virtualization component, in beta right now, will be available for most corporate customers for just $28 more than the server license without it. I’ve been playing with the preview a bit, and aside from some hardware support bugs I’ve encountered — it is a preview, after all — I’ve been impressed at how simple it is to use. Again, for $28 a server, Microsoft is offering something that might not be the same as, say, the top-of-the-line offering from VMware, but covers substantially enough of the functionality that it’s going to have an impact on the market.

All of this is great news for Microsoft partners, who’ll be able to piece together solutions for a variety of customers, and for Windows sys admins who are comfortable with Microsoft’s server management environment and want to be able to manage virtualization and search from within it. The technology has already been a bit commoditized by open source versions of the technologies, but Microsoft’s packaging of them into cohesive, easy-to-install platforms at essentially no cost makes that commoditization even more of an atmosphere-reducing move for competitors.