Want a usable Virtual Server? Pay more money!
Microsoft renamed Virtual Server 2005 SP1 to R2 somewhere this week, which at first may sound like a technicality, but one that could end up costing you some money. According to the FAQ:
Customers with active Software Assurance (SA) when Virtual Server 2005 R2 becomes available will be eligible to upgrade to Virtual Server 2005 R2.
This appears to mean that if you apparantly were stupid enough to go out last week and buy a $999,- license of Virtual Server 2005 Enterprise Edition, that you'll have to shell out additional money near the end of the year just to keep it from slowing your Server 2003 SP1 VMs down to an unacceptable crawl. Sure, you knew SP1 wasn't supported on Virtual Server 2005, but before you decided to buy it, you did the responsible thing and tested the Virtual Server 2005 SP1 beta, which includes VM Additions for Server 2003 SP1. So after considerable testing, you decided to buy it because even though the current product was clearly not up to the task of virtualizing and consolidating a bunch of current Server 2003 machines, it would surely after SP1 is out. But apparantly, SP1 won't be out, but you can buy something better in a couple of months.
One of the main reasons to get Virtual Server 2005 is that it's quite a bit cheaper than VMWare's offerings. At least, it used to be. If we have to start paying for the support for every new Windows Server Service Pack (since apparantly, Virtual Server 2006, or should I say R3, is already in the works) then that advantage will diminish rapidly.