Microsoft has not formally revealed when that will be, although Redmond promised a 2012 delivery date and it previewed developer versions of the Windows 8 client and server operating systems at its BUILD conference earlier this month.

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This follows Microsoft's coup, also earlier this month, with in which Cisco said it was creating a Nexus 1000V Series virtual switch designed to support Server 8's

The NEC announcement is interesting for network professionals interested in exploring a standardized, virtual switch like OpenFlow's software-defined networking architecture. NEC's new product, dubbed for now as the ProgrammableFlow vPFS Virtual Switch for Windows Server 8, will make use of new capabilities coming in Windows Server 8. It will offer features like network policy mobility, monitoring, programmability for Hyper-V environments. The virtual switch will include multi-path load balancing functions.

An OpenFlow-based virtual switch offers advantages to both Microsoft and Hyper-V users compared to Cisco's approach, says an NEC spokesperson. "Cisco presented Nexus 1000v which is a proprietary solution. However, NEC is based on OpenFlow which is an open solution, which is an advantage for Microsoft because it will not be locked in to any particular vender. Also, NEC's solution doesn't change any packet format such as adding tags," the spokesperson told Network World.