Rumour has it that next week (Feb 23), during the VMware VMworld Europe 2009 conference, Citrix will give away for free its XenServer hypervisor.
There is no reference to a scaled down version of XenServer. It is reported that the Enterprise Edition with all its features will become free.
To ensure sustained revenue Citrix will will release a new management package called Citrix Essentials, available in two editions, priced between $1,500 and $5,000 per server, one for XenServer and one for Microsoft Hyper-V.
This last version will be available as part of a renewed partnership with Microsoft, dubbed Project Encore.
Project Encore also indicates that System Center (possibly the entire product family) will manage XenServer.
Anyway it’s a state of fact that every major virtualisation vendor on the market now has a free, unlocked hypervisor.
VMware and Microsoft, the other big-name player, both offer basic versions of their server virtualisation hypervisors for free. The commoditisation of the hypervisor is an accepted trend in the market, but Citrix is pushing it forward by giving away advanced features.
More information can be found here.
More information can be found here.