I understand that not everyone understands everything there is to know about virtualization.  That's fine.  Heck, there are more and more things coming out about virtualization every day - new products, new platforms, new third party applications, new uses for it, etc.  I understand, the topic has an incredibly large scope when you start getting down into the thick of things. 

But come on!  Up on the surface, without scratching anything deeper... people writing magazine articles and online publications should at least know something about what they are saying first.

How can someone compare VMware Server to Microsoft Virtual PC 2004.  Ok, forget the fact that one platform is basically JUST RELEASED! and the other platform has been out for years.  Fine!  Throw that part of the equation out the window. 

But apples to apples and nuts to nuts, how can someone in the industry compare these two products?  Sure, let's throw VMware Workstation and Microsoft Virtual PC 2004 under the microscope and call out who does what better, and which product offers which feature.  I'd say that was fair.  I'd even say let's compare VMware Server with Microsoft Virtual Server 2005 R2... similar products, fair to compare.

Am I missing something?  Is the comparison between these two different products, geared at two different markets, a fair comparison to make?  iTWire wrote an article recently that basically says Microsoft made Virtual PC 2004 free because of VMware Server.  While I completely disagree with this statement as well, I'll let it slide for now.  That's one person's opinion, and I value that.  I think it cuts way deeper than that, and I think Microsoft's reasonings are much more interesting than because VMware Server is free.

What I don't like is asking "So what's the difference between VMware Server and Virtual PC 2004? " and then saying VMware Server is better.

It's kind of like saying, what's the difference between Red Hat Enterprise Linux 4.0 and Microsoft Windows 98?  What next, should I write an article that shows how Xen is better than VMware Player?

And even if you were to TRY and compare them for SOME unknown reason, at least try to go into some sort of detail.  Don't make a claim like one is better than the other and then just offer up operating system support.  Certainly virtualization offers more to compare than just the operating systems that it supports?

If I'm being crazy here and I'm not seeing the forest through the trees, somebody please let me know.

iTWire's article can be found, here. 

I trust VMBlog's readers to know the difference or to at least set me straight.  Which is it?

Thanks,

David