The product is available as a beta download at http://www.vmware.com/products/server.

Virtualisation and VMware have become mainstream in the past year, and many customers have deployed thousands of VMware server environments across their enterprises.

With VMware Server, VMware says that it has ensured that any company interested in, considering, or evaluating, server virtualisation for the first time has access to decent virtualisation technology.

VMware Server is said to compel companies that are new to virtualisation to take the first steps toward enterprise-wide virtual infrastructure.

This is according to Grant Mufford, VMware product manager at Workgroup, who says that VMware Server enables users to quickly provision new server capacity by partitioning a physical server into multiple virtual machines, bringing the benefits of virtualisation to every server.

"By making virtualisation technology available broadly and freely, VMware is providing the opportunity for users to experience the benefits of virtualisation firsthand and for companies to broaden usage of virtualisation to all corners of their enterprises," he adds.

"VMware is an ideal starting point for users seeking to familiarise themselves with the concept of virtualisation before progressing into the enterprise-class suite of VMware virtual infrastructure products that include ESX Server with Virtual SMP and VirtualCenter with VMotion technology for large-scale production server consolidation, business continuity and enterprise hosted desktop solutions."