If you’re looking for tangible, bottom-line benefits—and these days who isn’t—choosing the Microsoft's server virtualization solution is the way to go. The comparable VMware solution costs six times what the Microsoft solution costs and Microsoft offers physical and in-guest management that VMware doesn’t*.
Microsoft Virtualization and Management Solutions vs. VMware vSphere
This chart compares several pricing scenarios and shows how Microsoft is significantly less expensive than VMware. VMware’s own calculations don’t add up; while most of its pricing comparisons use vSphere Essentials SKUs, all of their feature comparisons use vSphere Enterprise features. It is based on VMware vSphere vs. Microsoft Hyper-V Server 2008 R2 or existing Windows Server 2008 R2 and System Center Management Suite Datacenter. We stack up favorably even when you consider migration capabilities: Live Migration is included in Windows Server 2008 R2 at no extra charge while you must purchase vSphere Advanced or higher just to get the same capability. In fact, you can use the free, Microsoft Hyper-V Server 2008 R2 hypervisor, which includes High Availability and Live Migration at no extra charge.
