"I'm still digesting what we discussed but, here's my first few thoughts.  As I am able to further integrate what I've heard and analyze it, I'll post more on this topic."

"The first point I took away from our discussion is that Red Hat takes a very comprehensive view of virtualization that encompasses everything from virtual access software all the way through to virtual storage software. This view is based upon real-world usage of Red Hat's Enterprise Linux software rather than simply based upon what's hot in the media today."

"Red Hat clearly understands that the mix of applications and the architecture of those applications differs between Linux/Unix and Windows and has tried to focus on the tools that would help organizations trying to get the most out of their Linux/Unix  configrations."

"Although what I'm about to say is no longer completely true, organizations still implement Windows applications as a set of services and assign each service to a separate machine or set of machines. For example, a database management system is unlikely to be hosted on the same machine as application services. The database engine, however, might be replicated on another machine in order to either increase the performance of the data management function or increase the reliability/availability  of that function."

"I must point out that Microsoft has made great strides in improving the reliability of Windows over the years. Directors of IT and IT architects have long memories and are chartered to "keep things going no matter what." They learned years ago that it was wise to implement Windows-based applications as a set of functions and assign each function to a specific server with either Windows NT and with Windows 2000. This is the basis of much Microsoft's virtualization strategy. It is a
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