From the corporate blog Mike Neil, General Manager of Virtualization Strategy at Microsoft, announces a delay on the much awaited Windows Server Virtualization (codename Viridian) public beta, expected so far for WinHEC 2007, and of Virtual Server 2005 Service Pack 1 general release:
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The public beta of Windows Server virtualization will ship in the second half of 2007, not in the first half as previously disclosed. The final version of Virtual Server 2005 R2 service pack 1 now will be available in Q2, not Q1 as previously stated. In the interim, customers and partners can download a Release Candidate (RC) version later this month – this is code complete and an update to the current beta 2.
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So, you ask, why the schedule change to the beta of Windows Server virtualization? The primary drivers are around meeting our internal goals for performance and scalability. In an IT environment of ever-growing multi-core processor systems, Windows Server virtualization is being designed to scale across a much broader range of systems than the competition. We’re designing Windows Server virtualization to scale up to 64 processors, which I’m proud to say is something no other vendor’s product supports.
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Windows Server virtualization remains on schedule – to be released within 180 days of the release of “Longhorn.”
Today we’re also updating the delivery schedule for the service pack of Virtual Server 2005 R2. It’ll be available later this quarter. In this instance, we required some additional time to test the new operating systems that will be supported with the service pack of Virtual Server R2. We’ve added support for three additional operating systems – SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 10, Solaris 10 and the recent CTP build of Windows Server “Longhorn.”…
Read the whole article at source.