Content Management Matters ™

Microsoft's big next-generation virtualization beast has arrived and the speculation pours forth like wine. Redmond's hypervisor based virtualization system for x64 systems, Microsoft Hyper-V, has released to manufacturing and is available for deployment into production environments. So far, the verdict is out in regards to Hyper-V's actual performance, but what about its implications for the virtualization market?

The field of virtualization just keeps a-movin'. This time, desktop/server virtualization heavy-weight Parallels is taking server virtualization into the up-and-coming realm of SaaS. Their popular OS virtualization solution, Parallels Virtuozzo Containers, has been chosen by ProServe, one of the leading ISPs in the Netherlands, to deliver a scalable, cost-efficient Online Backup solution through a SaaS model.

Virtual Bridges, a leading provider of desktop and enterprise virtualization solutions for business, has launched version 5 of its Win4Lin Desktop virtualization system for running Windows on Linux. It includes performance increases it claims beats the likes of VMware Workstation and other competitors in the desktop virtualization market.

Virtualization has been taking the IT field by storm, but where is it headed? The theme of November's 4th International Virtualization Conference and Expo is "The Next Generation of Virtualization". They are welcoming submissions from exceptional speakers with high-quality use cases not just on how virtualization maximizes the use of resources and thus saves companies money, but also of how it is altering the way businesses run IT in a fundamental way.

SaaS and Virtualization have played a prominent role in the tech industry landscape for a while now, and the latest studies seem to show that they're going stronger than ever. In a CIOZone.com study that ranked the top-60 fastest-growing public software companies of at least $150 million in revenue in 2007, VMware lead the pack and Red Hat came in 12th place boasting a 33.6 percent growth rate.

Even more interesting is the role that SaaS seems to be playing in the success of some of these companies.

Virtual appliance wizard, JumpBox, Inc., has announced the launch of JumpBox Open, a service that will give users subscription access to their collection of easy-to-deploy virtual appliances for Open Source applications.

The announcement was made at the Under the Radar: The Business of Web Apps conference. JumpBox Open represents a departure for the firm who previously sold their applications and services individually.

JumpBox, provider of virtual appliances to simplify server software deployment, has just released six new appliances for open source products. The JumpBox library has been bolstered with new applications for Cacti networking graphing system, phpBB bulletin boards, ProjectPier project management, TikiWiki, PmWiki, and MoinMoin- another Wiki product.

The total number of JumpBox appliances now stands at twenty.

Those of you who believe that the growing virtualization trend is merely a passing fad, think again. According to a new study by Saugatuck Technology Inc., virtualization will have the single largest effect on IT budgets for hardware and support over the next three years (cue Jamiroquai's 90's hit "Virtual Insanity").

Read on to discover the other virtual truths uncovered by this report.

From the creators of the popular desktop virtualization software, Parallels, comes the beta version of hypervisor-powered virtualization solution Parallels Server , the first virtualization solution designed to run on Apple hardware.

With all this talk about virtualization darling VMware (its record quarter, its fawning suitors), we'd nearly forgotten there were other pretenders to the throne.

Said pretenders include Microsoft, which just began public trials of Hyper-V.

Hyper-V is the official name of Microsoft's long-awaited "Viridian" hypervisor, whose release has already been delayed a couple of times -- bumped from Q1 2007, to Q3, to nowheresville.

But according to Fortune, Hyper-V's software will appear in three editions (there will be eight) of Windows Server 2008, with the first public release slated for Q1 2008.

Windows Server 2008 Standard, Enterprise and Datacenter will include Hyper-V by default.

The fun never stops for the folks at JumpBox, where they are unveiling an expansion of their product line to include Jumpboxes for Open Source applications: Alfresco, OTRS, Bugzilla, and Mantis.

The people at Jumpbox, Inc. want to know if you have what it takes to join Proving Grounds, where brave participants put it all on the line to… test upcoming JumpBox beta software (hey, this is a techie site, after all)!

The provider of virtual appliances has announced the launch of the JumpBox Proving Grounds, an invite-only beta testing community. Proving Grounds gives members access to new JumpBoxes, special offers and news not otherwise available to the public.

It's a season of change at Palo Alto-based wiki startup Socialtext.

The company has just announced its appointment of Eugene Lee as Chief Executive Officer and member of its board. It has also stated that it has closed a Series C funding round of US$ 9.5 million.

Vital Path has just released a new version of its PathBuilder offering, in which vestiges of virtualization are used for the greater good: "in-place" records management (that's VP's specialty).

The combination of a balanced portfolio of business lines and the performance of virtualization trailblazer VMWare results in EMC's strongest financial quarter ever.

If you are numbers person, try these on for size:

• US $3.3 Billion - total consolidated revenue for the third quarter of 2007
• US $718 Million - operating cash flow
• US $189 Million - revenue for EMC's Content Management and Archiving business representing double-digit growth

Do these numbers surprise you? They shouldn't as this makes seventeen consecutive quarters of double-digit revenue growth.

Congratulations to EMC on yet another remarkable quarter financially.

While it remains to be seen if EMC will be able to maintain this rate of growth during the looming economic downturn, there is no denying their self-proclaimed title of "world leader in information infrastructure solutions".

For more information about all of EMC's products, please visit the website.