I work for two very small rural public school districts in northwest Wisconsin. Currently I have both schools using the free VMWare Server 1.x to run primary services for the school. Now I see ESXi is free and I am considering using that.
,
However, I do not understand VMWare's marketing strategy with these free products. I am very concerned that VMWare is eventually going to pull the rug out from under us free product users and declare that we must either upgrade to the paid product version or go back to a non-virtual state.
Both of the school districts where I work have severely depressed financial support from the state government due to low student enrollment, and both districts have been in talks of consolidation over the years. Practically everything we use is at least 3 years old off-lease hand-me-downs. There are few LCD monitors in use, since reusing an old CRT is free. At one of the schools I really need to buy an LTO3 tape autoloader for $6000 but we can't afford it so I limp along doing backups across multiple tape drives. Also I need a 3000VA UPS for about $3000 but we cannot afford it so instead we use a hodgepodge of 10yr old 1000VA UPSs.
Meanwhile, I have looked into purchasing the official VMWare products, and everyone I ask (including VMWare's own salespeople) tell me that VMWare's products sell at a price of no less than $3000 per ESX server license. There is no educational discount for public school districts.
,
I am sorry but there is absolutely no way we can possibly afford to go with the commercial VMWare product, and at that non-discounted price level I will NEVER be upgrading from the free products. Listen, I buy all my Windows licenses through a state buying pool and I can get Windows Server Enterprise for about 90% off the $3000 retail/business price.
My big fear here is that VMWare is trying to get us free users "hooked" on their product. In a few years after virtualization has become "the way things are now done" the free products seem to be very likely to stop being updated and supported. If such a day comes I will be reluctantly reverting everything back to a non-virtualized state because the commercial product line is priced way outside of our reach.
Is there some reason that VMWare refuses to offer educational discounts? Perhaps we are far too small of fish for the VMWare marketing department to care about?
- Dale Mahalko
