Why do you dodge in boxing when someone is telegraphing a haymaker?
The bigger picture is that I need a longer term infrastructure to get into, and now is the time I can get that going. VMware was the default and easy choice, and if I get any deeper into it it'll just be that much harder to pull out.
The way I see it, their half-baked release of 5.5 isn't a mistake - it's a clear and obvious message that they have no intention of keeping the Free Hypervisor a relevant option for the SMB space. Similar to when they neutered the Backup APIs. I can completely understand the strategy, and the need to protect the revenue stream - it's just not something I can justify the cost on at this time.
You think HyperV is perfect? Think again. You want to make HyperV cluster as nice a VM Cluster you better know your Windows Server Shit and very well and in the end you still will want to purchase SCCM/SCVM. Then you have to deploy 3 Servers just to manage, you the need SQL Server, SCCM and SCVM servers. Then you get into the complexity of both and their setup and to do it correctly it will take you minimum 10 hours.
The backup API in Vmware free does suck but then again Windows Server Backup sucks my nuts as well. FYI Windows Server Backup on a HyperV host will stall exchange 2013 half the time and constant reboots are needed. It will also crash third party databases. VSS is a unreliable POS that has broken on me more then I can count.
HyperV server is a catch 22 as well, if you don't have an AD your fucked cause its a mess to manage hyperV with out an AD. Yes there are people that don't have AD nor do they want it.
Yes both have their advantages and disadvantages I run both. Both have their uses but neither is perfect but bashing VMWare because people asked for a quick and simple management appliance is just dumb assery when you compare it to the cluster fuck of management tools from MS.
FYI I am a VCP and HyperV certified. I know both in depth and vmware has much better tools then MS.
Any way you complain like its the end of the world by buying into one when conversion to v2v is very easy and switching between hypervisors is not the end of the world.