This week at VMworld 2007, the virtualization industry’s top conference, Microsoft is showcasing a broad new set of initiatives that continue to build on nearly a decade of experience in virtualization technologies.

Showing strong customer adoption across desktops and datacenters, virtualization is emerging as a compelling technology to the challenges of making IT management more dynamic and cost effective. Virtualization enables IT managers to pool computing resources, providing a layer of isolation between various services, software and applications so they can be set up quickly on multiple devices, with little or no configuration. Microsoft views the virtualization arena as wide open to software innovation and full of opportunity for customers, for whom the benefits include reduced cost, simplified system administration and an improved user experience.

Microsoft has developed a portfolio of technologies and tools that address server virtualization, desktop virtualization, application virtualization and virtualization management to help customers achieve higher levels of cost efficiency and business agility. The company’s integrated approach is on display at VMworld 2007 conference, an annual event hosted by VMware that attracts IT professionals, developers, technology providers and technology experts from around the world.

PressPass spoke with Larry Orecklin, general manager of marketing for System Center at Microsoft, to learn more about Microsoft’s virtualization strategy and to understand the implications that the company’s virtualization initiatives have for customers and the industry as a whole.