Retail giant Target plans to roll out Microsoft’s virtualization technology to its 1,700 stores, giving the software giant’s enterprise cloud computing efforts a new boost. Microsoft announced a new deal in which Target will manage such operations as inventory, point-of-sale, and supply-chain management remotely with Microsoft’s Hyper-v software. In addition, Target will roll out 15,000 virtual machines using the technology across the country.
VMware, run by former Microsoft senior executive Paul Maritz, dominates the software virtualization business. But Microsoft has been working to cut into that lead with acquisitions and new software. The market offers one of the best opportunities for growth in enterprise computing as companies push to reduce costs by shedding hardware and running systems over Internet infrastructure.
