IDC that VMware's share of new x86 virtualization software shipments was 44% in the second quarter, with Microsoft clocking in at 23%. VMware's lead in last year's second quarter was 51% to 20%, and its lead in the first quarter of 2008 was 42% to 18%, according to IDC.
IDC attributed Microsoft's growth to the general availability of , a notion VMware officials scoffed at. Hyper-V was on June 26, with only a couple business days left in the second quarter, Mike DiPetrillo, a principal systems engineer at VMware, wrote in a that analyzes the IDC report.
"So did Hyper-V really ship enough units in 2 days to get 23% market share? I doubt it," DiPetrillo writes.
DiPetrillo accused IDC of basing the 23% figure only on "unit shipments from the OEMs," but this does not appear to be true. The IDC survey did examine OEM vendors like HP and Dell who offer servers that have already been virtualized, but that was a separate comparison and there's no indication in IDC's report that the VMware/Microsoft market share comparison was limited to OEM sales.
IDC analyst Brett Waldman explained IDC's methodology in a phone interview Wednesday, saying the analyst firm determined market share by surveying more than 2,500 virtualization users from 35 countries, examining public filings and having conversations with vendors. IDC's user survey looked at all new server virtualization licenses, regardless of whether they were sold through OEMs or other sources, he said.
On DiPetrillo's point that Hyper-V has only been generally available since June 26, Waldman said numerous Microsoft customers were using Hyper-V in production before then through an early adoption program. Most of Microsoft's virtualization market share comes from its pre-existing product, Virtual Server 2005, but Waldman said he expects Hyper-V's market share to continue rising.
DiPetrillo also questioned how IDC counted shipments of Microsoft's Virtual Server 2005, given that it is a free download off Microsoft's Web site. Waldman said the IDC survey only counted new licenses if they were actually put into production.
Waldman denied another assertion by DiPetrillo, who claimed the IDC survey - which is part of the firm's Worldwide Quarterly Server Virtualization Tracker - was sponsored by a "competitor in Redmond" -- i.e. Microsoft.
"The is not a sponsored product. It is available on a subscription basis to all of our clients," Waldman said.
DiPetrillo, in a phone interview, said VMware didn't subscribe to the Server Virtualization Tracker and thus were not given a chance to offer input before numbers were published. "IDC has never contacted VMware for its actual shipment numbers," DiPetrillo said. "Since we didn't subscribe to the Virtualization Tracker we don't get input into it."
The subscriptions essentially are the same as a sponsorship, he argued. But DiPetrillo acknowledged he doesn't know for a fact that Microsoft subscribed.
In his blog, DiPetrillo also claims that IDC failed to count usage of VMware Server, a freely downloadable product. This appears to be untrue, as IDC specifically stated that VMware's market share includes both the and VMware Server. DiPetrillo said "I'll be happy to post corrections on the blog if there are corrections to be made."
DiPetrillo's blog states that it contains his personal opinions, and is not hosted by VMware or vetted by anyone at the company.
VMware's internal public relations team urged reporters to read his blog post, however, and said VMware disagrees with IDC's findings.
"Our own data leads us to believe that VMware's unit market share is much higher than the IDC numbers, and that competitor market share is much lower," a VMware spokeswoman wrote in an e-mail to Network World.
Another VMware spokesman said the company won't say exactly how much market share it believes it has, saying "we don't publicly comment on market share." The spokesman questioned the IDC survey, though, saying a pool of 2,500 respondents may not be a representative sample. VMware has more than 120,000 customers. The spokesman also said the idea that Hyper-V gained significant market share after only being available a few days during the second quarter is "questionable."
VMware better-than-expected financial results in the third quarter this week, with revenue 32% higher than last year's period. VMware CEO Paul Maritz announced a hiring freeze and other changes to help VMware survive the economic downturn, but he also dismissed the notion that VMware is losing any substantial market share to rival Microsoft.
"We did not see any major losses to Microsoft," Maritz said, according to a of the third quarter earnings conference call. "Currently we take Microsoft very seriously and keep our eyes very closely focused on them. ... Despite the series of announcements over the last quarter, Microsoft is still behind in terms of their product roadmap and we do not see them catching up to us until the next 12 to 24 months."
When market share is counted by revenue, there is no contest between Microsoft and VMware. Microsoft, whose virtualization products are free or almost-free, has 1.1% of revenue share and VMware has 78%, according to IDC.