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| Windows XP system on left. XP virtualized on Windows 7 on the right. |
Virtualization has been a hot topic - for good reasons. It turns compute/storage/networking hardware into "software". In the "software' form, compute/storage/networking resources can be consolidated, copied, killed, or started via management software- thereby saving energy, space, and maintenance. But if you are not a data warehouse provider, why should you care about virtualization? How can average consumers benefit from virtualization?
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| Perfectly good working hardware rendered obsolete due to Windows 7 not supporting these hardware. |
Let's take a consumer who has made major investment in electronic products. In a real life case, the products are a slick thin Canon scanner, an easy to use Panasonic digital voice recorder, a unique power saving and beautiful OLED
Sony MP3 player, as well as non electronic investment in prosumer level authoring software. With the switch to Windows 7, all of this investment has been flushed down the toilet. Even if one simply spent the money to buy the new version of these products, some are no longer available. For instance, the slim Canon scanner is no longer
in production. Same goes for the Sony OLED MP3 player. These were bought
about 5 years ago and have worked flawlessly. A great testament to
excellent engineering, manufacturing, and design.
With virtualization, the investment in hardware, software, and knowledge can all be propagated to Windows 7 from XP. With several virtualization technologies such as VMWare, VirtualBox, and even Microsoft built in XP virtualization on 7, old software and hardware works! After installation, my dead dust-collecting devices came to life!
With virtualization, the investment in hardware, software, and knowledge can all be propagated to Windows 7 from XP. With several virtualization technologies such as VMWare, VirtualBox, and even Microsoft built in XP virtualization on 7, old software and hardware works! After installation, my dead dust-collecting devices came to life!
As a normal consumer, virtualization saved me by:
1. $100 : Sony OLED cigar shaped mp3 player
2. $80 : Canon Lide scanner
3. $50 : PDA (don't laugh)
4. $350 : Authoring software
5. $20 : Time and frustration of porting old data and music (Sony had a ATARC format)
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