Red Hat stiffs Win Server; Microsoft cuts, cuts, cuts; other news |
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By Barbara Darrow, Senior News Director
06 Nov 2009 | SearchITChannel.com |
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IT channel news briefs for Nov. 6, 2009
Oops! Red Hat forgets Windows Server support
When Red Hat Enterprise Virtualization for Servers debuted this week, Red Hat plugged it as a standalone, lightweight hypervisor that "provides a solid virtualization foundation for cloud deployments" and comes with software "for configuring, provisioning, managing and organizing virtualized Linux and Microsoft Windows servers."
One small thing: It doesn't support Windows Server 2008. Not the year-old initial release and not the recently available R2, according to the SearchServerVirtualization blog. Blogger Colin Steele likened this to an auto maker saying its hot new car won't run on unleaded gas.
Microsoft puts CRM on sale, cuts price on BPOS
When Microsoft updated its hosted CRM service this week, it offered users of Oracle CRM On Demand or Salesforce.com six months of Microsoft CRM Online for free if they sign an annual contract.
Microsoft has been busy on chopping prices of late. Last week, it sliced the price of its light-selling Business Productivity Online Suite (BPOS) to $10 per user per month from $15 per user per month. That move came on the heels of news that Microsoft lost a big hosted email contract in Los Angeles to (gasp!) Google. Coincidence? Related? You be the judge.
…and Microsoft wasn't done yet
Microsoft axed another 800 employees this week. The layoffs, first reported by TechFlash's Todd Bishop, come on top of other headcount cuts in January and May. At the beginning of the year, the company said it would pare up to 5,000 jobs over the next 18 months.
Will Windows 7 spur desktop virtualization?
There's been a ton of virtual ink about desktop virtualization but not a lot of adoption. But some IT shops think the arrival of Windows 7 may change that.
In the next year, many companies will move off Windows XP at last for this release when their hardware refreshes, and that's when they'll take a look at what VDI can do for them, according to SearchVirtualDesktop.com.
When companies start comparing the cost of 2,000 new desktops versus the cost of 2,000 virtual machines, they'll start moving toward virtual desktop, said Burton Group analyst Chris Wolf.
Check out Tuesday's IT channel news in brief.
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