Virtual Machined Thumb Drives
There's an article over on Ars Technica that talks about the new beta of VMWare ACE 2. This software, which allows you to build pre-configured and locked down VMs for distribution has gone to the next level with a very nice addition. You can now load the VMs onto Thumb Drives and distribute the drives, when the drive is plugged in a version of VMWare Workstation will install and load the VM. I can see this as being the next means of mass marketing. Some companies (Microsoft for example) are already providing trial versions of their new software via the Virtual Appliance Marketplace. Now they can get company branded thumb drives, load them with their demo software and mail it to prospective customers... and VMWare stands to make money in the process... It's win, win for everyone.
Also, the VMWare Fusion Beta (VMWare for OS X) is available.
eh… VMWare is a marketing company bringing virtualization to people stupid enough to pay for it. Somebody already did this with Xen like two years ago. see xenonkey or a variety of other packages…
I wouldn’t call it ‘people stupid enough to pay for it’… VMWare is leaps and bounds ahead of the competition right now in providing software VM on the desktop… XEN requires certain hardware in order to virtualize Windows…
As far as xenonkey… It’s not the same at all… You are required to have the software installed in two places (the software being XEN) and then you can transfer a VM with the state saved… This is nothing new… VMWare has been doing this since at the very least 4.x… and I’d imagine well before..
The VMWare ACE 2 Beta USB Key is different as it contains everything you need to plug in the USB key and use the VM contained on the thumb drive… no need for installed software on the recipient computer.