The company had previously said the virtualisation software beta would be released in the first half of the year. The schedule has now slipped six months and will be released in the second half.
Microsoft virtualisation strategy general manager Mike Neil made the announcement via the Windows Server Division blog. He also announced a delay in shipping the Virtual Server 2005 R2 Service Pack 1, which will now ship in Q2 having missed its Q1 schedule.
The announcement would have no impact on shipping dates for the long-awaited ‘Longhorn’ Windows release.
“Up front, it’s important to know that Windows Server “Longhorn” remains on schedule for beta 3 will be this half and RTM in the second half,” Mr Neil wrote in the blog.
The primary drivers (for delaying release of the beta of Windows Server virtualization) are around meeting our internal goals for performance and scalability,” Mr Neil wrote.
“In an IT environment of ever-growing multi-core processor systems, Windows Server virtualization is being designed to scale across a much broader range of systems than the competition.”
He said Windows Server virtualisation will be able to support up to 64 processors, more than any other product on the market.
“We still have some work to do to have the beta meet the “scale up” bar we have set,” Mr Neil wrote. “Also, we’re tuning Windows Server virtualization to run demanding enterprise IT workloads, even I/O intensive workloads, so performance is very important and we still have some work to do here.”
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