Several times in these months virtualization.info reported the news of an upcoming update for Microsoft Virtual Server 2005 R2.
It was supposed to be a new release, expected for 2H 2006 and sporting some new interesting features.
But the IDF 2006 annoncement made by Intel and Microsoft mentions a Service Pack for Virtual Server 2005 R2 in that timeframe, not a new product.
And since the major new feature, support for Intel VT, is underlined, there are great chances the so-called vNext will be just this Service Pack.
If so Microsoft customers could not see a new major virtualization product until 1,5-2 years, when codename Longhorn Server will gain virtualization capabilities with the Windows Hypervisor (codename Viridian).