At its Microsoft Management Summit (MMS) conference last month Microsoft unveiled the roadmap for the System Center family.
First of all the company announced that Virtual Machine Manager (SCVMM) 2008 R2 is expected 60 days after the release of Windows Server 2008 R2, and we know that Microsoft now is confident to release its OSes in October.
After this late 2009 launch Microsoft doesn’t plan to release a new version of SCVMM before 2011, as exposed in this chart provided by Techlog:
This may mean that the virtual lab automation solution that Microsoft promised to deliver with Visual Studio 2010 and Virtual Machine Manager may not come before 2011.
Considering the massive amount of vCenter modules that VMware is about to release, Microsoft may have a hard time to stay competitive without a SCVMM 2010. Even if the SCVMM 2011 will have the capability to manage the upcoming App-V for Servers and to interact with private and public clouds.
Unless, of course, the company decides to release stand-alone solutions that are not centrally managed by SCVMM.