Microsoft Corp. today announced the general availability and pricing of Microsoft� Virtual Server 2005. Available in both Standard and Enterprise editions, Virtual Server 2005 helps customers reduce hardware costs and increase operational efficiency in three key scenarios: automation of software test and development environments; rehosting of legacy applications; and consolidation of production server workloads such as networking, directory infrastructure or departmental applications. As a key deliverable of the Dynamic Systems Initiative, Microsoft's vision for simplifying and automating the way customers design, deploy and operate distributed systems, Virtual Server 2005 provides customers with more flexibility and control in the provisioning of data center resources.

"Our customers are looking for ways to cut infrastructure costs and make better use of their IT and development teams. They want to streamline application testing and development, consolidate to fewer servers and move legacy applications to new hardware running on the Windows Server (TM) 2003 platform," said Bob Muglia, senior vice president of the Windows Server Division at Microsoft. "Virtual Server 2005 meets these needs and provides easy, automated deployment and configuration. This improved efficiency and simplicity represents progress toward our Dynamic Systems Initiative vision of reducing IT complexity."