In the past years, virtual machines that allow a guest operating system to run within a host operating system (VMware, Virtuozzo, Virtual Iron, Xen, etc) have found an important role across the IT spectrum.  As computers become more powerful, running multiple operating systems becomes easier and more productive.  The role of virtual machines ranges from software development to server hosting to desktop productivity.

In Dec 2005, the standard of virtual machines, VMware, released a free VMware Player.  This product allows anyone to run a virtual machine created by other VMware products such as VMware Workstation.  This move by VMware to further their market share provides a tremendous benefit for those that would not typically purchase VMware.  Software vendors and consultants can now deliver a completely configured operating system image for customers to run as a demo.  Development teams can produce images from one machine with one license, and test on many machines with the free VMware Player.  Typically, the best way to try out linux was to boot to a live cd-rom, but it still required shutting down the primary OS thus interrupting productivity.  With VMware Player, just visit the Virtual Machine Center and download images ready to play.

Rumor has it that VMware may soon announce the release of VMware GSX Server for free.  This product takes the VMware Workstation concept to a server level for remote management of virtual machines running on a central server.  This is another marketing move for VMware to increase market share and give people a taste of the usefulness of a VMware server.  This could lead to a purchase of the more powerful, but not free VMware ESX Server.  This would be great news for those who would benefit from the VMware Player.  Now, development teams could test on virtual machines managed and ran on a central server versus consuming disk space, CPU, and memory resources on their own workstation.  Just as other free software (Linux, Eclipse, etc) has become tightly integrated into numerous environments due to productivity and accessibility (read "free"), VMware Player and GSX Server could likely become standard components of environments when no longer restricted the cost of licenses.