Sometimes Microsoft shoots itself in the foot -- and thank goodness it does. Microsoft won't support Exchange running on VMware (for obvious reasons) which leaves a nice market gap for creative companies such as Azaleos. Azaleos offers Exchange on VMware via a SaaS model. And now Azaleos has got this great customer case study to act as a reference for the service. This story by John Fontana in Network World says:

[Retailer iFloor is using managed services from Azaleos to run Exchange 2007 within his VMware environment. All the software runs on premise, his data is stored locally and Azaleos manages the installation. The company monitors both the host and guest environments and offers disaster-recovery options from its offices in Seattle.] Microsoft has yet to really master the idea of "co-opetition" or, as the younger crowd calls it these days "frienemies." VMware has made it unnecessary for people to consume server operating systems as they once did. Microsoft is combating with its own hypervisor. Therefore Microsoft wants to pretend VMware doesn't exist. However, if Microsoft did support Exchange (or other Office servers) on VMware, Microsoft could be profiting from the VMware by better serving its customers. Instead, it gives its customers reasons to seek out new suppliers, new solutions.

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