Creating a blog site with Movable Type software just got faster and easier with the help of virtual appliance technology know-how from JumpBox. Six Apart and JumpBox announced that the two companies have been working together to vastly improve and simplify the deployment process of Movable Type Pro.The new project is called “Virtual Movable Type by JumpBox,” and it is a jointly developed virtual appliance that bundles all of the components needed to run Movable Type. The virtual appliance contains prepackaged software that includes everything needed to operate the blogging environment such as databases, Web server software, and the operating system itself all in a single module that can be deployed in a matter of minutes.[ Visit the InfoWorld Virtualization Topic Center for news, blogs, essentials, and information about InfoWorld virtualization events ] According to Kimbro Staken, CEO of JumpBox, “It takes minimal technical skill and just minutes to deploy, regardless of whether it’s on your laptop, in the datacenter, or in the cloud. This strips away the barriers to using server-based applications like Movable Type and allows a less technical customer to take advantage of this great software.”When talking about how easy it is to get started using the product now, Ed Anuff, EVP and GM of the Movable Type Division at Six Apart, said, “You can get up and running immediately while reducing the cost of configuration and maintenance. And it’s a snap for anyone who wants to evaluate the platform to get started, whether that’s on a desktop running VMware or Parallels, a large-scale deployment on Amazon’s EC2, or anything in between.” Virtual Movable Type users can get started by selecting a hosting provider that supports VMware or Parallels virtual environments, or they can use their own virtual environments powered by VMware, Parallels, Xen, or Microsoft Virtual Server or Virtual PC. The JumpBox edition of Virtual Movable Type can be downloaded from Six Apart’s Web site. Virtual Movable Type and Virtual Movable Type Pro are free for developers and bloggers, but a company using the appliance will have to pay $449.95 for a five-user license or $1,549.95 for a twenty-user license. Software Development