VMware vs. Microsoft: The fight heats up again

Perhaps one of the greatest fights ever was the boxing match between Muhammad Ali and Joe Frazier known as the “Thrilla in Manila.” Inside the ring, these two boxing giants went at it for 14 rounds, leaving nothing behind, to try and prove who was the better fighter. But even before they stepped foot in the squared circle, leading up to the fight there was a lot of trash talk going around as to who would win and who would be the greatest fighter of all time.

In the virtualization world, where VMware and Microsoft seem to be going at it like Ali and Frazier, we may not have a 15-round limit or de-facto panel of judges to decide a winner, but we still have industry giants willing to battle it out in public and trash talk one another in the form of marketing FUD and social media madness. In this case, the battle is for dominance in the server virtualization and cloud computing markets, and neither company is anywhere close to throwing in the towel.

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Since its initial product launch in 2000, VMware has been the company to beat in server virtualization technology when it comes to features, stability, security, and market share. But beyond the “virtual” ring of technology and product capabilities, the real fighting is being conducted through trash-talking marketing. With the world’s largest virtualization trade show coming up, it should come as no surprise that things are heating up again. VMworld has been a hot spot of contention and FUD for the past few years. Who can forget Microsoft’s marketing debacle at VMworld 2008 in Las Vegas with its poker chip giveaway and its “vmwarecostswaytoomuch” campaign? VMware retaliated by stuffing Microsoft into a small 10-by-10 booth at VMworld 2009.

Fast-forward to Microsoft once again reaching into its FUD marketing bag of tricks. This time the company created a humorous video campaign series known as “VM-Limited,” featuring a 1970s look and feel and a No. 1 salesman character known as Tad. The campaign is meant to highlight what Microsoft perceives as VMware’s inability to move beyond its virtualization roots (being stuck in the IT past) while trying to build a cloud solution (the IT future).

Among virtualization audiences, some like the campaign, some don’t. Is it changing minds? That remains unclear. But one thing is certain: VMware is no longer sitting around taking marketing abuse from Microsoft. The virtualization giant recently responded with a 1-2-3 combination punch of its own.

The jab In a recent blog post, VMware responded to Microsoft with its own stab at humor, borrowing from American statesman Benjamin Franklin in saying “One today is worth two tomorrows,” a tongue-in-cheek reference to Microsoft’s tendency to make claims about products and features that are more road map discussion than tangible sales-ready product. We’re hearing a lot about the new features in Hyper-V 3.0 and System Center 2012 and how they compare with VMware vSphere 5.0, but those products are still a ways out, and VMware will be introducing its own updates to vSphere — perhaps as soon as VMworld 2012 two months from now.

The right hook For years, Microsoft has been telling anyone who will listen that VMware’s solution is more expensive than Microsoft’s when it comes to building a virtualization environment. To refute that statement, VMware commissioned an independent company called Principled Technologies to create a TCO report comparing vSphere and Hyper-V.

The research findings claim that vSphere infrastructure costs are about the same as Hyper-V infrastructure costs after you include server and facilities costs. They also claim that vSphere and vCenter are cheaper to operate than Hyper-V and System Center when carrying out five typical data center tasks. These tasks, according to the research firm, took 78 to 97 percent less time to complete when using vSphere. VMware attributes that time savings to the more advanced capabilities built into vSphere and the more efficient and optimized implementation of those features, which the company says it has perfected over many years by focusing on the delivery of virtual infrastructure and cloud platforms.

The upper cut VMware has also launched a new marketing campaign called “Get the Facts,” complete with a website featuring rebuttals to several of Microsoft’s recent criticisms. VMware takes another swipe by calling out that the facts presented on the site are “Not the Microsoft Hyperbole.” The site also claims Hyper-V 3.0 will still fall short of vSphere 5 in critical areas like virtual security, storage management, and business continuity.

Microsoft likes to tout its System Center heterogeneous hypervisor management capability while going after VMware vCenter’s lack thereof. But the now outspoken VMware is responding, claiming System Center Virtual Machine Manager (SCVMM) lacks basic management functions for vSphere environments, like managing a vSphere host, cluster, or resource pools and provisioning storage and networking. VMware also dings Microsoft by reminding people that SCVMM requires vCenter Server to manage vSphere environments, and that requirement results in redundant costs and more complex processes.

For the most part, VMware has remained quiet all these years, choosing to let its technology speak for itself. But what’s significant to me about this latest scurry of punches is that VMware is now going on the offensive and challenging Microsoft’s marketing. This tells me that for the first time, VMware really believes Microsoft’s Hyper-V hypervisor is a credible threat in the server virtualization market and it can no longer simply be ignored.

This article, “VMware vs. Microsoft: The fight heats up again,” was originally published at InfoWorld.com. Follow the latest developments in virtualization and cloud computing at InfoWorld.com.