Let me ask you a question: For those of you interested in Microsoft Hyper-V, how many of you are willing to convert to Microsoft Windows Server 2008? If you want to use Hyper-V, that’s exactly what you’ll have to do. Call me crazy, but I don't think there is going to be a stampede of people rushing to do this right away—certainly not for production environments. And when they do upgrade, it won't be for 100% of their servers, but rather bit-by-bit. History has shown that end-users have been very reluctant to implement new Microsoft platforms in stage 1.0 unless forced to do so.

Even more importantly, Hyper-V doesn't have the mobility, high availability, recoverability and load balancing capabilities that actually make server virtualization valuable to customers. Yes, it will provide server consolidation, but that is the easier part of server virtualization and for most customers, not where the real value is. Customers want to be able to move virtual servers between different physical servers online and transparently. They want failover capability and rapid recoverability. Hyper-V doesn't provide any of these capabilities in its 1.0 version and it’s not clear when it really will.

Additionally, I find it a bit of leap to believe that the majority of customers with mixed Windows and Linux environments will use Hyper-V for Linux. Even though Linux is supported by Hyper-V, it’s just not a natural fit. Look, Microsoft NAS supports NFS and I can tell you that while it’s a good product, people are using it for CIFS and not NFS. Sure, there might be a maverick or two using Microsoft for NFS, but it is truly the exception. I believe that will play out for Hyper-V and Linux environments as well. It's like a conservative Republican voting for Obama or Hillary—it's simply not going to happen all that often.

It is important to put things into perspective: Hyper-V is a new Microsoft technology that requires its new server platform; it has limited functionality and lacks core capabilities that a large number of customers are specifically looking for with server virtualization; and while Windows is the dominant OS, there is a big (and growing) Linux ecosystem that often co-exists within the same data center—and most customers are not going to use Hyper-V for Linux environments. Certainly, a large number of people will use Hyper-V on some level just because it’s Microsoft. But it isn't going to become pervasive for some time to come. The BIGGEST issue we have is educating people so that the HYPE around Hyper-V doesn't slow us or end users down.