Microsoft postpones VMware-on-Azure details release by two weeks

What's Redmond got to hide? Or clear with lawyers?

Microsoft's delayed its big reveal of how it plans to run VMware on Azure by a fortnight, and won't say why.

Redmond announced plans for a bare metal VMware service last week and later told The Register it plans to run vSphere, NSX, and VSAN in its cloud. Microsoft also told us that “Details of the licensing and transaction model will be shared closer to availability” and that “We are working closely with premier VMware-certified partners to operationalize and manage this solution for customers.” But Microsoft declined to name its partners.

The company's post about the new service included a link to a November 28th Webinar at which Microsoft promised to explain more about its plans.

The Register's virtualization desk signed up to get the details, but today found the following in our inbox.

Microsoft's new VMware-on_azure webinar notification

The Register has asked Microsoft why it postponed the webinar and was told "All registrants have been notified and we have nothing further to share at this time."

For now, all we can therefore do is speculate about the reasons for the delay. Sources close to Microsoft told The Register the announcement of the service was brought forward to rain on Amazon Web Services' re:Invent parade, while the webinar would have landed in the middle of the event. Perhaps Microsoft decided to deliver the rest of its news in clear air.

VMware was clearly far from happy with Microsoft's announcement. The first-mentioned company's swift denial of support for VMware-on-Azure may therefore have given Microsoft some extra details to sort out.

We imagine VMware's also tried hard to figure out which of its partners is giving Redmond a leg-up and, if it learned who is helping, probably drafted a sternly-worded letter or three that could well have given Microsoft fine reasons to delay any further details.

The Register will keep trying to figure this stuff out – our questions have been asked, sources probed and dark internet haunts visited! ®