“To many people, the computer screen of Cornell University
freshman C. Chris Erway is a confusing jumble. But there is a new
kind of freedom in the chaos, thanks to start-up VMWare Inc.”
“ON ANY GIVEN DAY, Mr. Erway’s monitor might display a mish-mash
of different software: perhaps a graphics program and Microsoft
Word and a C++ programming tool. While all PCs can run many
programs at once, Mr. Erway is the talk of his dormitory because
his programs were written for several different operating systems,
including Microsoft Corp.’s Windows and the grassroots hit
Linux.”
“Ordinarily, PC users are stuck using a single operating system,
such as Windows. Mr. Erway, though, can switch back and forth among
several of them. That’s because he is using a test version of
VMWare, a program that is a hot topic in Silicon Valley even before
it has been officially released.”
“VMWare, which shipped a test version of the product last week,
expects it will eventually work with International Business
Machines Corp.’s OS/2 operating system, Solaris from Sun
Microsystems Inc. and software from start-up Be Inc. (It won’t
support Apple Computer Inc.’s Macintosh system, unless Apple
rewrites its software to run on Intel chips.)”
“But she and other VMWare executives insist they aren’t hostile
to the software giant; they argue their product could actually lead
to loading more copies of Microsoft operating systems and
applications on personal computers and servers. A week before
announcing the company, VMWare executives gave a courtesy briefing
at Microsoft’s headquarters in Redmond, Wash.”