VMware accuses Microsoft of spreading lies

Say what you will about VMware, but they sure aren’t shy when it comes to publicly taking on the competition. Whether it’s an employee attacking Citrix on his personal blog or sales memos that try to drive a wedge between Microsoft and Citrix, the server virtualization market share leader doesn’t pull too many punches.

The latest example comes from Virtual Reality, the corporate blog VMware set up just to defend itself from bad publicity — or, as they call it, “set the record straight.” Its new post comes from VMware’s Mark Chuang, who criticizes Microsoft for distributing a Yankee Group report that doesn’t exactly paint VMware in the best light.

The reason the report is unflattering to VMware? Because much of it was innacurate, according to Chuang — so much so, he says, that Yankee Group agreed to publish a revision and removed the original from its website.

That hasn’t stopped the ever opportunistic Microsoft from spreading the report around, most recently in a virtualization newsletter this week, Chuang says. He also accuses Microsoft of continuing to distribute the report despite a request from Yankee Group to stop.

It will be interesting to see if Microsoft keeps drawing attention to the report and, if so, what action VMware takes to stop them.