VMware will make ESXi hypervisor free

Effective July 28, VMware will be making its ESXi hypervisor available for free. This aggressive move comes as a direct counter to Microsoft's efforts to propagate its own Hyper-V hypervisor, only recently made available for Windows Server 2008 for around $28. ESXi costs $495 per license at the moment.

For now, the price list for the rest of VMware's products remain unchanged. It is clear from this that VMware is using ESXi to give administrators a chance to use its core product before hopefully moving to higher-end products. VMware is the current market leader with $1.3 billion in revenue last year, and projected revenue growth of 42 to 45 percent for this year.

For more information on this report:
- check out this InformationWeek article