I don’t believe that most people really see what is coming with
Virtualization … at multiple levels.  This plan by Microsoft,
IMHO, is common sense … and something that the Linux crowd really
will have to wake up to.  And I do not believe that Xen is it yet … not without full support for Microsoft operating systems.  Qemu is another interesting project that I have been following … they are also continuing to make advances.

With this plan by Microsoft – which I again believe is a great move –
it sounds like they will be expanding what they offer with Virtual PC … something that I use on a daily basis.  Microsoft will now be able to say “Hey … run Linux … as an APPLICATION on Windows!” 
So the installed base of Windows customers *will* be able to experience
the best of both worlds … they will maybe take a look at Linux by
running it on Windows.  They won’t have to give up Windows …
they keep Windows and get Linux too!

From what I understand, the Linux efforts for Xen will eventually be
able to compete as the next generation of processors are made available
from Intel and AMD.  As this next generation of CPUs hit, not only
will we see this advance in virtualization but these same processors
are going to be adding the multi-core, and multi-threaded capabilities
which will even further multiply the ability to virtualize operating
systems, and higher-layer abstractions.

Virtualization is starting become more of a commodity at the “hardware
virtualization” level … and more and more applications are being
written to the LAMP abstraction … another form of
virtualization.  This is all moving rapidly up the stack. 
It’s fun to watch.

News.Com: Microsoft ‘hypervisor’ plan takes shape.
Bob Muglia, senior vice president in the Windows Server Division, said
at Microsoft’s Tech Ed conference here that the software will be “built
directly in Windows and will allow companies to virtualize multiple
operating systems. [Tomalak’s Realm]