» Virtualization

Focused tightly on non-agent-based configuration management; monitors VM activity from a module outside the VM itself, tracking patches, applications, users and other factors.

Only two years old; manager-of-managers approach requires extensive development and help from other vendors; introduction of Hyper-V will challenge ManageIQ's ability to keep up with rapid market shifts.

As virtual servers host ever-more-critical applications, fail-over and recovery will become an absolute requirement

Today, Marathon's technology works only with Xen-based hypervisors; no plans to work with VMware.

Choosing Microsoft's Hyper-V hypervisor and Windows Server 2008 may offer some cost advantages compared to VMware; keep in mind products have yet to ship.

64-bit only; runs only on x64 or via Server Core; VM management console is limited, most users will have to use VM-enabled version of System Center Virtual Machine Manager (VMM); no built-in failover capability; requires Windows drivers as platform; no bare-metal operation.

Relative neutrality in the virtualization market lets it play nice with both VMware and Microsoft; owns its own distribution of Linux and can tune it and its VM code to enhance each other; solid management tools of its own, plus recent acquisition of Platespin's physical-to-virtual (P2V) conversion tools to migrate Windows systems into XenSource's XenEnterprise Virtual Machines.

Still a second-tier player among virtualization vendors; hypervisor is built into Novell's enterprise version of Linux, forcing customers to pay relatively high prices for Xen technology; startups and virtualization specialists could outstrip Novell's VM-management tools and leave it behind as market moves beyond simple migration to virtual servers.

Experience and customer base in server provisioning; applies ITIL and ITSM to virtual servers; incident and change management and maintenance reduce hands-on-server time.

Not the only fish in this particular sea; competition from Opsware got more intense when Opsware was acquired by HP.

Focus on adding virtualization support underneath Oracle products lets Oracle concentrate its development efforts; prices are relatively low for that reason; competition with Microsoft and VMware is purely titular -- Oracle's VM effort is designed to prevent either company from taking over the lowest-level software on a server running other Oracle products.

Not an operating system or virtualization specialist; focus only on its databases and applications limits potential support for other uses of Oracle's VM; continuing effort to buy BEA Systems could interfere with BEA's Java deal with VMware; Oracle's tendency to go head-to-head with Microsoft whenever possible may draw its focus away from its core strengths and lead it into direct competition for VM OS market.

Not much competition to put VMs on the Mac.

Will there be broad-market demand for VMs on the Mac? That's still to be determined.

Relatively long history as a virtualization ISV; workload management, disaster recovery, physical-to-virtual server conversion will all continue to be important add-on management functions.

Just bought by Novell; future of standalone products and alliances, pricing, licensing and other issues remain in question.