VMware vSphere 4.1 release imminent?

The new version of vSphere may be released earlier than expected according to some changes in the VMware’s website. And the virtualization platform may be indeed called vSphere 4.1 rather than 4.5 as virtualization.info suggested so far.

An attempt to browse the URL http://www.vmware.com/download/download.do?downloadGroup=ESX41 in fact redirects to the default login page for non-public downloads, and on this page the product name used is ESX 4.1:

ESX41_DownloadPage

Of course a similar attempt using the ESX45 code doesn’t redirects to the download page.

Over the last two months virtualization.info reported about the list of features that will be part of vSphere 4.1 and a list of performance improvements that VMware will publish once the product will be released.
On top of that VMware published a video demonstrating one of the new features: the Storage I/O Control.

Thanks to our anonymous tipster for the news.