Larry Orecklin, who runs the System Center business and virtualization (pictured right), laid out the Microsoft vision on virtualization from the server to the desktop. He clearly put the emphasis on management, focusing on core pieces of System Center with Operations Manager, Configuration Manager, Data Protection Manager and Virtual Machine Manager (VMM).

If the hub of Orecklin's vision is management, the pieces that revolve around the hub are server virtualization, applications virtualization, desktop virtualization and presentation virtualization (i.e. terminal services). He said the VMM version that will support Hyper-V will ship with the hypervisor add-on for Windows Server 2008. He said the timeframe for that release will be June or July. He hinted that the beta of VMM that supports Hyper-V would be released next week at Microsoft's Management Summit in Las Vegas. In addition, he disclosed that Microsoft has 4.5 million seats of Microsoft Application Virtualization (SoftGrid) out in the field. He said Kidaro, which Microsoft acquired in March, would become an important tool for managing virtual PCs.