Optimized OS from M$?
I really laugh hard when M$ tries to get into a market with sub-par products or vapor-ware. Zune anybody? They would be far better off getting more performance out of their existing products, Vista? LOL then treading into a realm that they can't compete in from the get go.
Lets face it the windows products, including their servers, don't hold a candle to other server products out there when i comes to performance. Yes *NIX, what ever flavor you want is going to beat windows servers for as long a M$ doesn't get it. Forever???
Vmware's VM kernel is small, efficient and doesn't have to be rebooted every month on patch Tuesday for another IE flaw. So coupled with a bloated host OS and monthly patch reboots, M$ should be sucking slue water for a very long time in this area. Makes me smile :)
Foot note. Sun is going to have it's version out for Solaris that will allow windows server as a guest OS on x86. If, I mean big if, Sun can deliver they would have a better chance at grabbing market share than Microsoft. Historically i wouldn't hold my breath on Sun or either company making a dent in VMware's dominance in this market.