Results

Both Google and Microsoft have made moves to enter the health care industry recently, and both are hoping that the sector will prove to be fertile hunting grounds. This election season many Americans are taking stock of the way our health care system functions, and depending on the outcome in November, there may be major changes in store. Microsoft and Google are both taking a risk by pushing tools and software applications aimed at patients and professionals, and their daring may be ill-advised.

Microsoft launched a controversial health record storage tool called HealthVault in October, and thus far they have managed to attract some high profile industry partners, including American Heart Association, LifeScan (a glucometer manufacturer), and the American Diabetes Association. Talkibie covered the launch of HealthVault, and initial reactions to the technology were mixed. However, as the U.S. population ages and baby boomers become retirees, experts predict that the average patient will become more involved in tracking and managing their health records. The web is an increasingly convenient and secure option for keeping track of everything from taxes to social calendars to bank accounts, so why not hospital records?

Google had been hush-hush about a health records tool for months, though the technology world was expecting a competitor to Microsoft HealthVault. CEO Eric Schmidt finally announced Google Health in February, and the web-based application will allow patients to upload and link their personal health records to doctors offices, pharmacies, specialists, and other authorized parties. As the official Google blog puts it, “Google Health aims to solve an urgent need that dovetails with our overall mission of organizing patient information and making it accessible and useful. Through our health offering, our users will be empowered to collect, store, and manage their own medical records online.” The new record storage site is being tested at the Cleveland Clinic and Google is inviting both patients and doctors to share any thoughts or suggestions for improvement.

Microsoft also has designs beyond online patient record storage. They recently announced a new application called Patient Safety Screening Tool (PSST), which would be used within hospitals as a means of monitoring patients to prevent infection. PSST specifically targets sepsis, a deadly infection common in hospital in-patients which can affect as many as 750,000 patients annually. As a Microsoft press release explains, ““The Patient Safety Screening Tool for Sepsis can help save lives by monitoring clinical data inputs and dispatching alerts and reminders based on predefined thresholds and pattern matching to facilitate early detection and intervention.”

While all these efforts towards cracking the health care market are laudable, one has to wonder if Microsoft and Google are barking up the wrong tree. The industry is notorious for tight budgets, strict administration, and binding bureaucracy. While some might view these as barriers, these two technology companies clearly see them as opportunities for improvement. If a new software tool or web application can save doctors time, save administrators money, and save patients’ lives, it would certainly have every chance to succeed in the health care sector.

Despite intense negotiations and Steve Ballmer’s best efforts, the Microsoft buyout of Yahoo! is off, for now. With top executives unable to reach a price per share agreement, Microsoft withdrew their $33 per share offer. Yahoo! co-founder Jerry Yang reportedly asked for $37 per share for his company, which Ballmer was unwilling to meet. Yang maintained that the Microsoft offer undervalued Yahoo!, despite their closing price of $19.18 on January 31st, the day when possible deal became public. In a press release Ballmer explains his decision to give up: “We believe the economics demanded by Yahoo do not make sense for us, and it is in the best interests of Microsoft stockholders, employees and other stakeholders to withdraw our proposal.”

In the wake of the announcement, Yahoo! stock sank, reportedly off 16% by 10 A.M. on Monday. This reaction shows just how much shareholders and traders were depending on a successful negotiation, and Yahoo!’s next moves will determine whether they stay afloat. They’ve begun more than a few new ventures in recent weeks as an attempt to boost stock prices in the face of Microsoft’s offer, but will any of their efforts prove successful without the deal going through?

First, Yahoo! launched a news-rating website called Buzz, which gives readers the ability to vote on their favorite content by “buzzing it up”. The most popular stories and pages will rise to the top of the page, giving readers a chance to see what others in the Yahoo! community are reading. Buzz attempts to mimic the success of popular link-sharing sites like Digg, Del.icio.us, and StumbleUpon while spreading the success of Yahoo!’s news service.

Also, Yahoo! entered into a controversial partnership with Google for a short experiment in ad sharing. Google was allowed to place ads on 3% of Yahoo’s various sites, which prompted a share rise of 7% upon announcement. The strategy lasted just two weeks, but some experts speculated that it could signal a longer-term cooperation between Google and Yahoo!. The controversy comes from anti-trust watchdogs and regulators, who would likely strike down a true partnership between the two, as it would consolidate web advertising in too few hands.

Lastly, Yahoo! plans to unify many of their various services into one network, giving users the opportunity to create profiles and share their activities with friends. The social networking model would tie together their popular email service, Flickr (a photo storage & sharing site), Del.icio.us (social bookmarking site), Upcoming (social calendar site), and many others. They plan to sideline Yahoo! 360°, a social networking site that hasn’t caught on in a major way. Rather than building a social network, Yahoo! plans to build social features and conveniences into each of their services, providing users with a unified, customizable dashboard.

While many had hoped that a deal would be imminent (particularly Yahoo! shareholders), executives at Yahoo! were not ready to give up just yet. These recent announcements could be what it takes to keep them in the game, albeit not on the level with Google. As for Microsoft, they’ll have to wait for another opportunity to jump into the web market.

The wires are buzzing this week as Microsoft is reportedly experimenting with subscription-based versions of their productivity and security software packages. The new pricing plan, code-named “Albany”, is currently in private beta, and no announcement has yet been made as to when a wide release is scheduled. Albany will combine many of the tools that Microsoft users access on a daily basis, and the subscription will ensure that they always have the latest version without going through the headache of installing and updating software.

Albany will include Microsoft Office Home and Student 2007 (a combo of Word, Excel, Powerpoint, and OneNote), Windows Live OneCare (an anti-virus tool), Live Mail, Messenger, and Photo Gallery. It will also automatically install a shortcut to Office Live Workspace in users toolbars, which give access to on-demand versions of the Office tools. This combination is meant to appeal to users who aren’t satisfied with licensing agreements, which are not only expensive but also force users who want new versions to buy new licenses.

A Microsoft press release explains how the idea for Albany came about: “We asked consumers what they needed and wanted most on their PC, and the overwhelming response was that they primarily want productivity and security software. Consumers also expressed frustration at having to spend time and effort installing different types of software, keeping current on new versions and getting their computers set up.” The subscription plan eliminates this frustration by providing automatically updating software for a regular fee. Albany customers will always get the new software releases as they’re launched without paying more - it’s included as part of their subscription.

Reviews and reaction to Albany, as is customary for all Microsoft products, is mixed. One CNET blogger writes, “Seriously, this is pointless junk. The only real value is to Microsoft who get to see usage patterns and understand how on-demand software is consumed.” A bit harsh, but it is likely a perk of the venture that was not lost on Microsoft executives. A ReadWriteWeb article is considerably more forgiving: “Even though Albany won’t be a true web office offering, it is a likely low-cost alternative to Google Docs that lives on a user’s PC — something that is still more comfortable and familiar to many mainstream users.” Microsoft is clearly testing the SaaS waters before committing to any big move, and it seems this may hurt their chances in the eyes of some while helping hold on to more traditional customers.

While the plan for Albany falls short of a true Software as a Service model, it resembles the pricing and updating philosophies of companies like Salesforce.com and Google, both of whom are edging into Microsoft’s productivity software market. Salesforce.com tends to target businesses with customer relationship management (CRM) tools, while Google has been directly threatening Office with their online document, spreadsheet, and presentation applications. Microsoft’s Office Life is a nod to the SaaS trend, though it has yet to catch on with core customers in the business sector. As Albany moves towards a firm launch date, Microsoft’s competitors will be watching closely to see how users react to the packaged subscription model.

As the popularity of interactive web applications continues to set the standard, the tools developers use to create RIAs (rich internet applications) are increasingly functional and sophisticated. Some focus more on graphics and animation, while some are directed at businesses breaking into the web world with Software as a Service applications. Two of the main competitors in this market are Adobe, a veteran of RIA development, and Microsoft, which has recently expanded its offerings to RIA developers. Smaller companies, such as Curl and Mozilla, have also embraced the interactivity trend with development tools that have garnered praise. These four players each have something different to offer developers, and their tools are likely to inspire others as RIAs hit the mainstream.

Adobe is by far the largest and best-known company to RIA developers. Flash is the bedrock of their new AIR platform, which stands for Adobe Integrated Runtime. AIR strikes a compromise between online applications and desktop functionality, giving developers the tools to build web applications that run in a desktop environment, sans browser. The tool set was tested throughout 2007 and became available in a 1.0 version in late February 2008. It’s compatible with Windows and Macintosh operating systems, with Linux support in beta. Applications built in AIR require users to download a small run-time (similar to Flash sites), and these apps utilize many familiar tools for RIA developers.

Users of AIR can utilize Flex Builder, Dreamweaver, Flash, and even HTML and AJAX. There is no single, limiting protocol for creating AIR applications. One concern, however, is security. Since AIR apps run in a desktop environment, they do interact on some level with the operating system, though Adobe has tried to limit this as much as possible. Despite the risks of a hybrid model, AIR has many of the benefits of web applications with the stability of desktop programs. AIR will enable RIA developers to keep the sleekness and beauty Flex and Flash while still bringing the power of the web cloud to desktop apps. These hybrid programs could bypass the limitations of web browsers, allowing offline functionality while still maintaining the speed and data processing skills of purely web-based applications.

Microsoft has taken aim at Adobe with their recently released Silverlight 2.0, which aims to combine animation and graphic tools with better data processing, making it appeal to enterprise users. The browser plug-in, a direct competitor with Flash, allows web-based applications to be developed with animation, vector graphics, and video/audio playback capabilities. The new 2.0 version, released in March, supports .NET languages and development tools. This means that content can be coded in a myriad of languages, including some dynamic languages like Ruby and Python. Future plans for Silverlight also include offline functionality, putting the Microsoft development kit in more direct competition with Adobe AIR.

Another development option for businesses with an RIA focus is Curl, which has been a player in this arena for many years. Curl is more business-focused, helping developers create applications specifically for enterprise use. The platform is a stand-alone tool that integrates seamlessly with business data systems and applications. It supports Windows, Mac OS X, and Linux, and has also reached out to developers through open-source projects. While not focused on heavy animation or interactivity, Curl does allow developers to create solid data charts and graphics.

Lastly, Mozilla, the open source company best known for their Firefox browser, has created a tool called Prism which allows RIAs to run in a desktop environment. While not a suite of development tools, Prism essentially lets developers turn any web application into an independent entity, pulling it onto the desktop. This is helpful because it allows users to tweak and run apps outside of a browser window. It is extremely simple, and requires no new technology or special knowledge. Developers can use all their favorite tools, then deliver the finished product as a desktop program through Prism. It is based on the same model as Firefox 3.0, but it is a considerably simpler version to help developers focus on the app itself.

As web-based software becomes the industry standard, more and more developers will turn to RIA-building tools such as AIR, Silverlight, Curl, and Prism. These technologies will also likely expand their reach into the enterprise market, making it easier and more convenient for businesses to create their own SaaS applications and integrate them with existing tools. Business users are more sophisticated than ever, and they will demand the kind of functionality and beauty that RIAs offer.

Hot on the heels of Yahoo!’s better-than-expected earnings report, the search company has revealed new plans that will change their social networking strategy. Instead of continuing to pursue Yahoo! 360° as a social networking spot, Yahoo! will open its platforms to external developers, allowing users to unify their various services and choose from third-party applications to create complete profiles. This will give Yahoo! users just one location for all their functions, including email, calendars, news, photo storage, and instant messaging. With Microsoft’s takeover offer looming, this strategy may help Yahoo! redefine their services for the new generation of internet users.

PC World has reported this development from the Web 2.0 Expo in San Francisco Thursday, where Ari Balogh, Yahoo’s chief technology officer gave a keynote address. Balogh said, “”It is rewiring Yahoo from the inside out, across all of our properties, to fundamentally open up those Web services and provide a consistent development model, a consistent deployment and consumer experience as well.” If all goes well, the strategy has the potential to unite hundreds of millions of people who use Yahoo!’s email and messaging services in a social setting. It could potentially give Yahoo! the boost they need to compete with social networking giants like MySpace and Facebook, both of which are open to outside developers creating applications for use within their sites.

Yahoo!’s APIs (application programming interfaces) have been available to developers on a limited basis in the past, but this move is much more broad, and will hopefully create a streamlined process like that provided to third-party Facebook developers. With Yahoo!’s recent acquisitions of Flickr (photo sharing site), Del.icio.us (social bookmarking site), and Upcoming (calendar sharing site), the combination of services into a single dashboard could be quite appealing to users. Third-party applications could include anything from games, blogging tools, file sharing, and a variety of other popular social networking tools. As Balogh said in his address, “We are not building another social network. We are building social into everything we do.”

The first piece of Yahoo!’s puzzle that will be opened up to developers is Search Monkey, which will give outsiders a look at their search technology. Users and developers will be able to customize and tweak search results, as well as applying SEO techniques to bump them up in Yahoo!’s rankings. A senior researcher at Forrester told the BBC, “My hat goes off to Yahoo that they have been able to execute this in a very difficult and stressful time for them on a strategy that I think is potentially very interesting.” Indeed, with Microsoft’s deadline for their takeover offer looming, Yahoo! has shown no signs of slowing their progress.

Their earnings report released earlier this week shows a 9 percent increase in revenues and an 11 percent increase in profits over last year’s first quarter. Yahoo! executives no doubt hoped this news would solicit a higher offer from Microsoft, but the software giant has not backed down. Tomorrow will be the deadline for Yahoo! to begin talks, and Microsoft has threatened to go hostile if an agreement is not reached. Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer has indicated that the offer may be taken directly to Yahoo! shareholders, bypassing the company’s management.

We all love an underdog, and many in the technology community are rooting for Yahoo!. The new social networking strategy will likely win them even more fans, and potentially give them the bargaining chip they’ve been looking for.

In an unexpected twist, yesterday’s earnings report from Apple shows that the Silicon Valley giant is still very much dependent on its Macintosh products for revenue. As the Wall Street Journal is reporting, “Apple said it sold 51% more Macs in the quarter than a year earlier, with that revenue jumping 54% to $3.49 billion from $2.27 billion, about 47% of Apple’s total revenue.” The findings are especially significant when viewed in light of recent economic woes, as most consumer electronics companies are expected to perform poorly during a slump. Apple, however, has somehow managed to make their revenues rise against all expectations.

The other surprising thing about Apple’s earnings report is the fact that its Macintosh products are still its most significant source of profits. According to an Apple press release, “Apple shipped 2,289,000 Macintosh® computers during the quarter, representing 51 percent unit growth and 54 percent revenue growth over the year-ago quarter.” iPod sales, which were also strong, represent just 8 percent revenue growth for the company. Analysts have speculated that the strong Macintosh performance may be due to a saturation of the music player market. Apple COO Tim Cook refuted this claim recently, saying “For last quarter [Q1 2008] in the U.S., 40 percent of iPods sold were sold to people who did not own an iPod. In thinking about this number, this doesn’t feel like a saturated market to us.”

Other industry watchers have given Microsoft the credit for Apple’s big earnings. More and more companies, my employer included, are switching to Macs in the enterprise setting due to problems with Vista. Just six percent of businesses have adopted Vista, and the recent service pack release has been less than well-received. By contrast, Apple’s OS X saw a business share of 4.3 percent in 2007, putting it in very close competition with Vista.

Part of the reason this movement is occurring is due to the nature of software compatibility these days. Software as a Service (SaaS) companies are gaining popularity, and many business users and individuals alike are turning online for their word processing, spreadsheet creation, photo editing, email management, and even database management tools. Major players in the SaaS market, like Salesforce.com, Google, and Adobe are taking customers away from their MS Office Suites and onto the web. In a way, this means that a browser is really the most important piece of your operating system. Vista’s annoying quirks are too big to ignore, so even business users who would usually need Office are looking for alternatives.

However, it’s unfair to Apple’s careful brand to say that Vista’s failure is the only reason for their success. Their entertaining ads and friendly image, while much more directed at consumers than businesses, draw a clear connection between Apple and creativity. Their innovations in user interface, with both the iPod and the iPhone, have set the gold standard which all others aim to emulate. It seems to be paying off nicely, as their 2nd quarter earnings have surprised the entire industry.

In the two months since Microsoft first made an unsolicited $44.6 billion bid for Yahoo!, much speculation has been circulating about how the deal will play out. The rumor mill is churning today, as several new developments have arisen. Yahoo! is allowing Google to post ads on its site, while Rupert Murdock’s Newscorp. is approaching Microsoft about a possible joint offer for the beleaguered internet search company. How will this all play out? It seems that every one in the industry has an opinion, and the news coverage has been fast and furious.

First, BBC News is reporting that Google and Yahoo! have struck a deal to test a new advertising strategy together. For two weeks, they will share advertising space on the websites they operate. Google will be allowed to display ads on 3% of Yahoo! search results pages, in an attempt to thwart Microsoft’s takeover. The strategy could force Microsoft to pay more for Yahoo!, as shareholders and company executives have complained that the initial offer undervalued the company’s true worth. Indeed, Yahoo! shares rose 7% in reaction to the advertising plan. The experiment is temporary and not indicative of a permanent relationship with Google.

Yahoo!’s talks with AOL, however, are of a more substantial nature. As a recent Wall Street Journal article explains, “Yahoo Inc. and Time Warner Inc.’s AOL are closing in on a deal to combine their Internet operations, a move aimed at thwarting Microsoft Corp.’s effort to acquire Yahoo.” Time Warner would merge AOL’s web portal into Yahoo!, though not its ISP dial-up service. The deal would give Yahoo! some capital with which to buy back shares from investors, strengthening their position against Microsoft.

On the other side of the negotiation table, Microsoft and Newscorp. are rumored to be discussion a possible joint offer for Yahoo!. This deal could leave Yahoo! with no champions to help them escape Microsoft’s grasp. As the New York Times puts it, “The combination, which would join Yahoo, Microsoft’s MSN and News Corporation’s MySpace, would create a behemoth that would upend the Internet landscape.” The possible deal between Microsoft and Newscorp. would give Ballmer the option of raising his offer for Yahoo! in the face of their rising share prices.

All these deals boggle the mind, and it’s very hard for consumers to know exactly how the various talks might affect them. Everyone likes an underdog, and it’s sad to see Yahoo! scrambling to raise their profile, but the business has been struggling for years in the face of stiff search competition. A deal with Microsoft, Newscorp., and Yahoo! would combine three of the most popular websites in the world. Microsoft has not yet announced its plans for Yahoo!’s brand should the deal proceed, but it seems clear that the executives at Yahoo! are desperate to avoid finding out. Most analysts agree that if Newscorp. and Microsoft make a joint offer, there’s little hope for Yahoo!’s continued resistance.

We are all familiar with the “get rich quick” schemes that have been around for years. Some prove successful, but most fall through. However, as the tech-savvy generation comes into their own, the next big money-making idea centers around website advertising. An article published by Business 2.0 Magazine describes a new phenomenon known as “traffic arbitrage.” This controversial practice is netting thousands of dollars a day for adept web developers. According to the article, “The concept is straightforward: Buy cheap traffic for your website from one search engine, get paid more for the ads streamed from another. Arbitrage is a major revenue source for some businesses.” The process is actually quite ingenious and surprisingly simple. Here are the step-by-step instructions describing how anyone could do this:

• Create your site, but don’t waste time or money buying an expensive domain name. It is unnecessary, because you can make the ads do all the work for you.
• Fill your site with ads from an ad host, like Google’s AdSense. Aligning your site with a popular search engine such as Google will greatly increase traffic flow.
• Place your own ads on Microsoft’s AdCenter. It’s cheaper than many competitors, and this will drive the traffic you want to your site.

After these three steps, all you have to do is bid for keywords and wait. Users will be drawn to the site, and many of them will also be drawn to the Google ads that have been placed there. The owners of the websites then cash in on the discrepancy between what they paid Microsoft and what Google is paying them. It seems like the perfect plan.

However, some web entrepreneurs have taken the idea a bit too far. In response, Google has been making efforts to block users who design sites for the pure purpose of traffic arbitrage, claiming that this diminishes the user experience. Generally speaking, the pitfalls here are obvious. A site created solely for the purpose of ad propagation is not going to be very popular, with high bounce rates and low return traffic. Users are very easily turned off by sites that offer a seemingly endless stream of clickable ads with little other content. It also seems like a bad business move; after all, the idea is to attract people to your site and keep them interested long enough to click on a select few ads. If the site is nothing but ads, what is there to attract the user?

Still, as is normally the case with a money-making scheme, this idea seems to be growing in popularity with many traffic arbitrage aficionados. As one enthusiastic blogger puts it, “I don’t know about you, but I do not know any businesses where you can make immediate and riskless [sic] profit, other than Traffic Arbitrage.” It certainly seems that, when pursued correctly, this idea certainly seems to work for many people. From all angles, the risks seem extremely low, and the potential payoffs seem almost unbelievable. After all, any venture that can earn yield thousands of dollars per day would be enticing to most people. As long as the web site creator is careful to make sure that the content of their site is not solely dedicated to ad space, it seems as though traffic arbitrage, however morally questionable some may deem it, is a very lucrative venture for up and coming entrepreneurs.

Sun has recently introduced a new family of Java products which have the potential to grab developers from AJAX, Flex and Silverlight. JavaFX, which consists of a mobile platform and a new script, is meant to deliver RIA technology on any platform. As Sun’s website put it, JavaFX is, “designed to enable consistent user experiences, from desktop to mobile device to set-top box to Blu-ray disc.” The JavaFX products, which are gaining popularity, are made up of a series of development tools, scripting and runtime environments, and widgets all based on Java technology. Sun is hyping the new product line as follows:

• The JavaFX product family leverages the Java platform’s write-once-run-anywhere portability, application security model, ubiquitous distribution and enterprise connectivity
• JavaFX initially is comprised of JavaFX Script and JavaFX Mobile
• JavaFX Script is a highly productive scripting language for content developers to create rich media and interactive content
• JavaFX Mobile, Sun’s software system for mobile devices, is available via OEM license to carriers, handset manufacturers and others seeking a branded relationship with consumers

JavaFX Script is specifically geared towards RIA developers, and it was designed to allow applications to run on the desktop, in a browser, or on a web-enabled cell phone. As it moves into the mainstream, it’s expected to compete with Adobe Flash/Flex and Microsoft’s new Silverlight platform. This new script, which focuses on animated, interactive interfaces, is garnering support among top level executives at Sun, including James Gosling, widely regarded as the founding father of Java. As Gosling told InfoWorld, “You can use it for anything that you would use AJAX for. You get much more dynamic behavior. You get much more advanced APIs that you get access to.” Gosling expects JavaFX may be the key to integrating our desktop, web, and mobile environments. “There are parts of the world where a person’s desktop computer is their cell phone, and that’s the kind of end point that we’re going to get to,” he says.

To reach this goal, Sun has included a fully-functional mobile phone platform in its JavaFX product line. JavaFX Mobile will bring rich content to cell phones in a way that has not yet been possible. It will support Java ME applications as well as other standard Java APIs. This new mobile software platform is expected to compete with Adobe’s Flash, which has not yet been optimized for a mobile environment.

Flash is purported to suck so much battery life that Apple has not yet adopted it for their popular iPhone. Adobe is reportedly working on a Flash player for the iPhone, though they are cautious about it’s future. According to a recent InfoWorld article, Adobe representatives released a statement saying, “However, to bring the full capabilities of Flash to the iPhone Web-browsing experience, we do need to work with Apple beyond and above what is available through the SDK and the current license around it.” The battle between Apple and Adobe is far from over, and Sun’s JavaFX may fill the void between the two companies.

While the new script and mobile platform help Sun boost its reputation in the RIA development world and compete with Microsoft and Adobe, the real significance of these products is the move towards integrating Web 2.0-style web applications regardless of the user’s hardware. JavaFX and similar products are starting to recognize the power of mixing online and offline functionality, which gives users the most versatility and performance in any environment.

One of the hottest hardware trends these days is virtualization, and the undisputed leader in this industry is VMware. They’ve been unopposed in the field for almost ten years, though a recent Microsoft announcement may challenge their position. In February Microsoft released a test version of their virtualization software called Hyper-V, which may present some real competition for VMware, and may give their customers a choice that was previously unavailable.

Virtualization, a strategy that has been kicking around the technology world since the 1960s, allows servers to run at a higher capacity than previously thought. Initially, servers could run only one application at a time, meaning that many systems could only reach 15% percent of their capacity. Virtualization utilizes a software called a “hypervisor” which allows any given server to run more than one operating system at at time, essentially fooling it into performing the work that many servers would ordinarily do. With virtualization technology in place, one server can do the work that 8 or more would have done, reducing the high cost of hardware, technical support, and even the electricity that servers suck. The economic benefits are very attractive to large companies with vast server farms, and the environmental benefits are just as obvious.

Microsoft’s Hyper-V software is expected to closely resemble VMware’s products, and Microsoft is optimistic about its chances for success. As Microsoft GM for server infrastructure Larry Orecklin told the Wall Street Journal, “We expect very broad adoption; it’s certainly priced to assure broad adoption.” Microsoft has released initial pricing information in a recent press release, which varies depending on setup and requirements. Even more promising, Hewlett-Packard, which currently supports VMware software installations for its hardware customers, have said they will support Hyper-V as well. The full version is expected out in June 2008.

VMware does not seem to be worried, however. After all, they’ve had a ten-year head start on Microsoft in terms of software development and industry connections. Vice president of research and development Steve Herrod commented to the Wall Street Journal, “Microsoft doesn’t have a product yet. We’re confident our 10 years of work will be most important.” A good point, but customers are hoping the new competition in the virtualization market will lead to lower prices and better products.

Hyper-V is the first major challenge to VMware’s domination of the virtualization market, and the competition is likely to not only increase the quality and lower the price of software, but also spark interest in the technology community as a whole for this product. This side effect could be the most important “plus” of Microsoft’s announcement, as it could lead to a greening of technology hardware across the board. Servers are huge drains on energy, and if companies like Amazon, Google, IBM, and Yahoo! were actively finding ways to reduce their electricity consumption, other smaller players would follow. No matter who takes the lead in the virtualization industry, consumers and the world at large are likely to benefit, whether from lower prices or better environmental practices.