VMware moves to lure Virtual Iron users with discounts

In a bid to lure customers left stranded from Oracle's apparent decision to halt development of Virtual Iron products, virtualization pioneer VMware is offering a "safe passage" plan to Virtual Iron customers. This includes discounts on cost of support and subscription contracts on certain products, as well as a steep 40 percent discount off the list price for the Advanced Edition and Enterprise Plus Edition of its newest vSphere 4 product. Also included are its vCenter ServerFoundation and vCenter Server Standard products.

Oracle acquired Virtual Iron in May. Barely a month later, the database giant sent a letter to Virtual Iron's more than 1,500 sales partners to inform them that it "will suspend development of existing Virtual Iron products and will suspend delivery of orders to new customers." Oracle will instead integrate the technology into its own Oracle VM platform.

Charles King, an analyst with Pund-IT Research summed up the situation that VMware apparently hopes to exploit, "If migrating to a new platform is required, why not consider an entirely new vendor as well?"

For more on this story:
- check out this article at eWeek
- check out this article at Computerworld

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