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    Is the Time for VMware in the SMB Over?

    Scheduled Pinned Locked Moved IT Discussion
    xenxenservervmwarevirtualizationvsphereesxihyperv
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    • scottalanmillerS
      scottalanmiller @garak0410
      last edited by

      @garak0410 said:

      I am nowhere near an expert in this areas but before coming to a SMB, I worked in a huge enterprise with a petabyte+ of SAN storage and we had ESX VM's all over the place...there were some redundancy issues when it came to some SAN errors in the firmware but overall, ESX was pretty solid.

      It's very solid. It is a great product with great engineering behind it. But being closed source and very expensive and lacking any differentiating features leaves it in a position of "when would we choose this" in the current environment of mature, feature-rich competition that is free?

      1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 1
      • ?
        A Former User
        last edited by

        You do need SCCM for some of the Hyper-V features to compare with the paid versions of Vshpere.

        The job I've currently been interviewing for is all Vsphere with multiple 42TB SANs. About 10 hosts at the main site. And more than enough servers to failover to with at the 16 other sites, along with Dell app assure replicating between multiple sites. They do have some SANs tied in to azure as well and replicating there. About 8,000 employees in total (and this subsidiary, parent company has a lot more) so Id still call it a SMB.

        scottalanmillerS 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
        • scottalanmillerS
          scottalanmiller @A Former User
          last edited by

          @thecreativeone91 said:

          About 8,000 employees in total (and this subsidiary, parent company has a lot more) so Id still call it a SMB.

          SMB typically is considered to cap around 500 employees. SME at around 2,000. 8,000 is normally considered a "large" business but not quite enterprise which, I believe, is normally starting around 10,000.

          1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
          • scottalanmillerS
            scottalanmiller
            last edited by

            As a subsidiary of that size, it sounds like a "large" subsidiary of an enterprise.

            I've worked for 350 person divisions of a Fortune 10. But at the end of the day, we were still an enterprise.

            1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
            • ?
              A Former User
              last edited by

              The real question here is will VMware realize this, and give away more for free, or will they stick to their guns and try to convince people there product is better?

              coliverC scottalanmillerS ? 3 Replies Last reply Reply Quote 2
              • coliverC
                coliver @A Former User
                last edited by

                @Aaron-Studer said:

                The real question here is will VMware realize this, and give away more for free, or will they stick to their guns and try to convince people there product is better?

                I doubt they have to change much of anything at this point, in the future they will try to rebuild their licensing to reflect this new competition. There are so many VMWare users out there that wouldn't switch to anything else. I've talked to several of them who said I was stupid for deploying Hyper-V when ESXi is so inexpensive.

                scottalanmillerS 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 2
                • scottalanmillerS
                  scottalanmiller @A Former User
                  last edited by

                  @Aaron-Studer said:

                  The real question here is will VMware realize this, and give away more for free, or will they stick to their guns and try to convince people there product is better?

                  It's a good question but VMware is caught in a difficult position - VMware sells a product that is otherwise free in the rest of the industry. This means that they cannot give it away or their entire revenue base is literally gone overnight and they have no way to make money. Microsoft, Xen and KVM all have good reasons to be free and have no need to make money from virtualization. VMware is the opposite.

                  This is the same problem that caught Windows in the face of Linux. Linux, being free and open source, was able to take over the server market in just ten years and while Windows still plays a very large role, the dominance of a paid option evaporated very, very quickly and holding onto the piece of the pie that they have is based primarily on having a ton of very unique options built into the product and relying on the perception that their competition is complex. VMware lacks both of those things.

                  VMware's only real hope, that I can see, is to figure out how to make their product so much better that they are worth the money. Otherwise, they are pretty much stuck. They can't be free and they can't really be easier to use than their competition.

                  coliverC 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                  • scottalanmillerS
                    scottalanmiller @coliver
                    last edited by

                    @coliver said:

                    I doubt they have to change much of anything at this point, in the future they will try to rebuild their licensing to reflect this new competition. There are so many VMWare users out there that wouldn't switch to anything else. I've talked to several of them who said I was stupid for deploying Hyper-V when ESXi is so inexpensive.

                    Much like the Windows versus Linux crowd. Linux can provide nearly any service that Windows can, but the Windows deployment density is heavily (but not entirely) based on having a huge user base that refuses to learn something new or is afraid of change or needs to play politics rather than being financially advantageous to the company.

                    Windows, like vSphere, is an excellent product. But the cost for it and the other caveats (licensing overhead, audit risks, extra manual labour, deeper knowledge needed, legal concerns) make it very, very hard to justify.

                    coliverC 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 1
                    • coliverC
                      coliver @scottalanmiller
                      last edited by

                      @scottalanmiller said:

                      @Aaron-Studer said:

                      The real question here is will VMware realize this, and give away more for free, or will they stick to their guns and try to convince people there product is better?

                      It's a good question but VMware is caught in a difficult position - VMware sells a product that is otherwise free in the rest of the industry. This means that they cannot give it away or their entire revenue base is literally gone overnight and they have no way to make money. Microsoft, Xen and KVM all have good reasons to be free and have no need to make money from virtualization. VMware is the opposite.

                      This is the same problem that caught Windows in the face of Linux. Linux, being free and open source, was able to take over the server market in just ten years and while Windows still plays a very large role, the dominance of a paid option evaporated very, very quickly and holding onto the piece of the pie that they have is based primarily on having a ton of very unique options built into the product and relying on the perception that their competition is complex. VMware lacks both of those things.

                      VMware's only real hope, that I can see, is to figure out how to make their product so much better that they are worth the money. Otherwise, they are pretty much stuck. They can't be free and they can't really be easier to use than their competition.

                      VMware could easily go the free with paid support option... there are no companies that are doing support for free at this point in time... although they would lose out on less then half their revenue stream.

                      mlnewsM 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                      • ?
                        A Former User @A Former User
                        last edited by

                        @Aaron-Studer said:

                        The real question here is will VMware realize this, and give away more for free, or will they stick to their guns and try to convince people there product is better?

                        Add more features or even lower pricing is likely. Free doubtful. They are suppose to be adding things like more virtual networking, in built firewalls and virtual routers etc.

                        1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 1
                        • mlnewsM
                          mlnews
                          last edited by

                          Windows, unlike VMware, has the advantage of a massive third party ecosystem that is unique and Microsoft is able to derive value from many different sources like their desktops, MS Office, Office 365, Azure, etc. Microsoft is well aware that the Windows Server value proposition is getting to be very lean and is rapidly diversifying and focusing on higher level platforms to mitigate this risk. This is the nature of the closed source, commodity platform beast and they know it well. Windows Server served them well for a long time but it cannot last forever and will not.

                          In time, Windows Server cost will drop until it is not a revenue stream and, hopefully they will wisely go free and license free at that time so that it remains an incredibly bit of technology and will regain much of its lost market share. It might even go open source at that point, but that is a difficult thing to do with code that was never intended to be opened.

                          1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                          • coliverC
                            coliver @scottalanmiller
                            last edited by coliver

                            @scottalanmiller said:

                            @coliver said:

                            I doubt they have to change much of anything at this point, in the future they will try to rebuild their licensing to reflect this new competition. There are so many VMWare users out there that wouldn't switch to anything else. I've talked to several of them who said I was stupid for deploying Hyper-V when ESXi is so inexpensive.

                            Much like the Windows versus Linux crowd. Linux can provide nearly any service that Windows can, but the Windows deployment density is heavily (but not entirely) based on having a huge user base that refuses to learn something new or is afraid of change or needs to play politics rather than being financially advantageous to the company.

                            Windows, like vSphere, is an excellent product. But the cost for it and the other caveats (licensing overhead, audit risks, extra manual labour, deeper knowledge needed, legal concerns) make it very, very hard to justify.

                            No argument there, the Windows proposition seems to be getting more and more hard to justify with "cloud" models readily available.

                            1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                            • mlnewsM
                              mlnews @coliver
                              last edited by

                              @coliver said:

                              VMware could easily go the free with paid support option... there are no companies that are doing support for free at this point in time... although they would lose out on less then half their revenue stream.

                              That's true, but seems unlikely. The revenue drop is probably more than they could withstand. Citrix is already doing this model, as is Microsoft. VMware lacks the additional revenue to make this work, I think.

                              coliverC 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                              • coliverC
                                coliver @mlnews
                                last edited by

                                @mlnews said:

                                @coliver said:

                                VMware could easily go the free with paid support option... there are no companies that are doing support for free at this point in time... although they would lose out on less then half their revenue stream.

                                That's true, but seems unlikely. The revenue drop is probably more than they could withstand. Citrix is already doing this model, as is Microsoft. VMware lacks the additional revenue to make this work, I think.

                                You think a crucial part of their revenue comes from new installs? I would assume that is minuscule compared to their on-going support/licensing. They are also spreading into attached markets with their VDI manager/infrastructure, Horizon.

                                mlnewsM ? scottalanmillerS 3 Replies Last reply Reply Quote 0
                                • mlnewsM
                                  mlnews @coliver
                                  last edited by

                                  @coliver said:

                                  You think a crucial part of their revenue comes from new installs? I would assume that is minuscule compared to their on-going support/licensing. They are also spreading into attached markets with their VDI manager/infrastructure, Horizon.

                                  Ongoing licensing is part of that same revenue. Both new installs and ongoing licensing would evaporate together.

                                  For Essentials, support is not even included as it is. The "paid support" model is already there and they still are charging for the initial install as well as ongoing licensing.

                                  1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                                  • ?
                                    A Former User @coliver
                                    last edited by

                                    @coliver said:

                                    @mlnews said:

                                    @coliver said:

                                    VMware could easily go the free with paid support option... there are no companies that are doing support for free at this point in time... although they would lose out on less then half their revenue stream.

                                    That's true, but seems unlikely. The revenue drop is probably more than they could withstand. Citrix is already doing this model, as is Microsoft. VMware lacks the additional revenue to make this work, I think.

                                    You think a crucial part of their revenue comes from new installs? I would assume that is minuscule compared to their on-going support/licensing. They are also spreading into attached markets with their VDI manager/infrastructure, Horizon.

                                    There VDI stuff isn't used much. XenDesktop is a way better VDI solution than VMware's. Also when has anyone needed to use support? Seems pretty rare. It's about like calling Microsoft support. Never need it. I've heard stories online of some people neededing it but don't know anyone who has.

                                    scottalanmillerS coliverC 2 Replies Last reply Reply Quote 2
                                    • scottalanmillerS
                                      scottalanmiller @coliver
                                      last edited by

                                      @coliver said:

                                      They are also spreading into attached markets with their VDI manager/infrastructure, Horizon.

                                      How valuable is that likely to remain if businesses are forced to "do VDI with another vendor", "do VDI with VMware and everything else with someone else" or "have a uniform environment?"

                                      I think that VDI and Horizon will do little for them, long term, because the value to that rapidly erodes in the light of everything else. And SMBs do very little VDI and by the time that they do, VMware will already not exist in their market.

                                      1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 1
                                      • scottalanmillerS
                                        scottalanmiller @A Former User
                                        last edited by

                                        @thecreativeone91 said:

                                        There VDI stuff isn't used much. XenDesktop is a way better VDI solution than VMware's. Also when has anyone needed to use support? Seems pretty rare. It's about like calling Microsoft support. Never need it. I've heard stories online of some people neededing it but don't know anyone who has.

                                        That pretty much sums it up for me. There is better VDI available from the free players which allows you to have a lower cost, lower risk, uniform virtualization environment on top of the alternative VDI.

                                        And support I totally agree. If you have an MSP partner, it is they who would use support and not the customer and they have heavy interest in being competent rather than spending money on support whenever possible. Internal IT running one of these products should not need support and the community support is very good if needed. These are super simple products. The only places I see spending money on support are huge enterprises with deep pockets and only do so because of a combination of playing politics (having someone else to blame is better than doing the right thing for the business) or hiding the incompetence of the department (spending a fortune on "support" to hide the fact that the vendor is doing the work instead of the IT guys.)

                                        1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                                        • coliverC
                                          coliver @A Former User
                                          last edited by

                                          @thecreativeone91 said:

                                          @coliver said:

                                          @mlnews said:

                                          @coliver said:

                                          VMware could easily go the free with paid support option... there are no companies that are doing support for free at this point in time... although they would lose out on less then half their revenue stream.

                                          That's true, but seems unlikely. The revenue drop is probably more than they could withstand. Citrix is already doing this model, as is Microsoft. VMware lacks the additional revenue to make this work, I think.

                                          You think a crucial part of their revenue comes from new installs? I would assume that is minuscule compared to their on-going support/licensing. They are also spreading into attached markets with their VDI manager/infrastructure, Horizon.

                                          There VDI stuff isn't used much. XenDesktop is a way better VDI solution than VMware's. Also when has anyone needed to use support? Seems pretty rare. It's about like calling Microsoft support. Never need it. I've heard stories online of some people neededing it but don't know anyone who has.

                                          I haven't had the opportunity to play with VDI much... although I applied for a job that works with Horizon. I can understand where XenDesktop comes into play though it is a very mature software from what I have seen.

                                          Good point on the support, I guess I am looking at a hypervisor as a fragile piece of software when all my experience points to the exact opposite.

                                          scottalanmillerS 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                                          • scottalanmillerS
                                            scottalanmiller @coliver
                                            last edited by

                                            @coliver said:

                                            Good point on the support, I guess I am looking at a hypervisor as a fragile piece of software when all my experience points to the exact opposite.

                                            In theory a hypervisor is tiny, does very little and insanely stable. If it is anything else, it should be avoided. All four big boys are great this aspect. This is partially why the Linux Foundation and Microsoft make the hypervisors free.... they do very little and need very little care and feeding. It's a place where if you don't make it free, someone else will (and has.) That there are two, enterprise, open source and free alternatives (Xen and KVM) already shows this. And in the Type 2 space, VirtualBox is free leaving effectively no room for alternatives there either.

                                            Operating Systems eventually migrate to open source and free over time. Hypervisors do the same but much, much faster.

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