News.com calls in “computer-in-a-computer” – the capability to run multiple operating systems on a single computer. The article talks about the efforts of Microsoft and VMware:
Microsoft announced Monday that it has finished development of a new version of Virtual PC for Windows. The software, dubbed Virtual PC 2004, will be available to Microsoft’s volume license customers and on retail shelves later this year, the company said.
Also on Monday, VMware plans to release new management software that it revealed details about in July under the name Control Center. The software now is called VirtualCenter, said Michael Mullany, vice president of marketing.
VMware’s main software line now is designed for servers–networked machines for data storage and processing. Microsoft’s Virtual Server product, though, isn’t expected until early 2004, and for now, the software giant is focused on PCs.
Intel is also working on this. Adds News.com: “Virtualization is the foundation for the idea of partitioning a server into several independent machines. Partitioning first gained widespread use in mainframes, with Unix servers now catching up and the idea now arriving on widely used machines that are built with Intel’s Xeon server processor. Microsoft and VMware are taking software-based approaches to virtualization and partitioning, but Intel itself hopes to improve the hardware support with a technology code-named Vanderpool, expected in 2008.”
Virtualisation+T
