Server virtualization is probably "the" hottest market today. If it's so great, then why aren't more servers getting virtualized? It has been widely reported by Gartner, IDC and many other analysts that virtualization software attach rates are hovering at only 1% and the cumulative installed base is near 5%.

Is consumption of this technology being artificially stifled by the dominant player (VMware) in the marketplace? Is the dominant player's software priced too high and performance too low? We definitely think so! When the software costs more than the server and runs much slower than the physical hardware, there won't be many servers and applications getting virtualized.

At Virtual Iron, we decided to do things differently: we decided to use advance hardware-assisted virtualization technology from Intel and AMD (the performance part I mentioned), coupled with rapid innovation that utilizes open source development methodology and an aggressive business model (this is the price part) to deliver "virtualization for the rest of us."

To deliver performance Virtual Iron has taken a much different architectural approach than the existing proprietary vendor, VMware. Instead of running a full blown Red Hat Linux operating system under the guest OS's, we utilize a next-generation open source hypervisor, running directly on bare-metal hardware. Our next generation virtualization technology implements native virtualization (running multiple unmodified operating systems -- Windows and Linux -- at near native speed). We are the first virtualization company to fully leverage the processors with hardware-assist from Intel & AMD for 32-bit and 64-bit operating systems. The combination of these technology advancements and our faster pace of innovation utilizing an open source development methodology have enabled us to come to market with an enterprise-class product in an extremely short period of time.

Fifteen months ago we decided to fully embrace an open source development model for our virtualization technology. We believe that the virtualization stack and hypervisor should be freely available, the source code open, without any restrictions. You can download it from our web site at any time.

Our underlying virtualization engine is based on the open source hypervisor project. Virtual Iron is part of a group of 20+ top technology companies (including AMD, HP, IBM, Intel, Novell and Red Hat) involved in the open source hypervisor project and one of the top contributors.

The open source development model that we practice is simple. We periodically snapshot from the community source tree, enhance with enterprise level quality and stability and then deliver this as an integrated, commercially supported product to the marketplace to simplify the consumption of this new and exciting technology "for the rest of us" -- and all of our improvements go right back to the community (it's all open source).

We decided early on that all of the developers forming our core virtualization team would only work on open source code, period. No proprietary code, no funny tricks around GPL, nothing weird.

Everything we do in the virtualization stack and in the hypervisor is open source --everything! (Well, in the spirit of full disclosure, there is one exception: we are contractually not allowed to open source one piece of our technology - all complaints to Redmond, please). At Virtual Iron, we don't hold back source code (for some possible market advantage). All of the bug fixes, improvements, enhancements that we make to the open source hypervisor project -- all of it -- goes right back to the community. And without any restrictions!

The open source development model has proven time and time again to be more innovative, create better software and be faster to market than proprietary models.

We also believe that virtualization software should never cost more than the servers utilizing it. That's why the Virtual Iron software is just $499 per socket - that's 80% less than VMware's cost. There's no need to purchase additional pieces or expensive software (and you don't need to download a 16-page PDF to understand our pricing model). In fact, if you wanted to, you could purchase Virtual Iron and the latest hardware for less than the cost of VMware.

Virtual Iron has even made our software available for free download from our web site (we only require an e-mail address so that we can send you a license file). You can use Virtual Iron on a single server for free - that's no cost, forever. For those wanting to use Virtual Iron in a multi-server environment, you can download a free thirty day evaluation for use on multiple servers.

Bottom line: build a solid, easy to use product that delivers excellent performance, price it fairly and the world will make a path to your door.