Availability of new Microsoft Exchange 2007 raises questions about company support in virtual machines.
The product is only available for 64bits platforms and currently nor Virtual PC (both 2004 and imminent 2007) neither Virtual Server support 64bit guests operating systems, which are expected no earlier than Windows Server Virtualization (codename Viridian) release.
What about supporting it on other virtualization platforms?
Microsoft policy about 3rd parties virtualization products states support is granted when an error appearing on any virtual installation can be reproduced on a physical one.
This implies Exchange 2007 is supported on all virtualization products (capable of running 64bits VMs), but Microsoft ones.
Luckily SharePoint Server 2007 and scaled down Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 are instead supported on Virtual Server 2005 R2.
Thanks to Andrew Dugdell for these news.
These informations has been included in the collection Microsoft support policy about virtualization.
Update: In an official Q&A session about Exchange 2007, Microsoft declared it’s not assured the product will be supported in a virtual environment at all, even inside upcoming Windows Server Virtualization (codename Viridian) virtual machines.