VMware's stand-alone ESXi hypervisor, which can either be installed or run from an embedded device available in certain servers, has a 32MB footprint and is from yesterday available at no cost "to help companies of all sizes experience the benefits of virtualization," according to an announcement made by the company. “VMware has always believed that virtualization needs to be ubiquitous. We want to accelerate the day that x86 servers and desktops are fully virtualized,” said Raghu Raghuram, vice president of products and solutions, VMware.

"With the explosive growth of multi-core capacity," Raghuram continued, "improvements in virtualization-aware hardware, and performance improvements in our virtualization software, we believe that no technical hurdles remain for 100% virtualization."

He added:

"Now we are removing financial hurdles as well. ESXi is mature enough and easy enough to use that it can be the entry point into virtualization for those companies just taking their first steps with the technology.”

The leading server manufacturers have all embedded VMware ESXi, including Dell, Fujitsu-Siemens, HP, IBM, and NEC. ESXi can be downloaded now from www.vmware.com/products/esxi/.

• Virtualization Unlocks Cloud Computing: Gartner