Microsoft's Hyper-V and its other virtualization technologies help push the company further into the virtualization community -- a new product launch event and user group could be the start. With the release of Hyper-V, Microsoft’s virtualization strategy is really kicking into overdrive. During the Microsoft Virtual Server years, it seemed like the company was really holding back — they just didn’t seem to have a lot of skin in the game. As I said, things have definitely turned around.Microsoft has opened up registration for a new launch event being called “getVIRTUALnow.” On September 8th, 2008, the company plans to launch new virtualization products at this event which takes place in Meydenbauer Center in Bellevue, Wash. Here, you’ll find out more about Windows Server 2008 with Hyper-V, Microsoft System Center, Virtual Machine Manager 2008, and Microsoft Desktop and Application Virtualization. According to the Web site, attendees of the event will learn about Microsoft’s virtualization strategy and roadmap from Bob Muglia, Senior Vice President, Server and Tools Business; Kevin Turner, Chief Operating Officer; and Bob Kelly, Corporate Vice President, Infrastructure Server Marketing. Customers and partners will also be present talking about their own deployment experiences and showing off their latest hardware and software solutions for the virtual environment. Keep watch on the Web site for possible future U.S. launch event locations. Around the same time, Microsoft also quietly announced that the first ever Microsoft virtualization user group finally sprouted. This was an area in which VMware really seemed to have a firm grasp — creating a community and user group around the technology. For years, Microsoft pushed its Virtual Server technology, but never created a user group experience around it for whatever reason.The first group to appear is in the U.K., and it is being dubbed the Microsoft Virtualization User Group UK or MVUG for short. This, oddly enough, sounds very similar to VMware’s User Group, or VMUG for short. If you are in the U.K. and happen to be in the area of Victoria, London, the group is having their first in-person meeting on Sept. 24.Visit the group’s official Web site for more information. Software Development