VMware has announced that VMware Converter 3.0 (Starter Edition) or P2V is now going to be free. It’s available for download right now.
For anyone who is migrting their physical environment to VMware Server or ESX this will be good news. There is still an Enterprise Edition which I think must still be paid for. There is a feature comparison table.
You’re still left with an important question … are you happy with the physical machine’s configuration and health? If so then a conversion may be suitable. If not, then a new build is probably the way to go.
Credit: Michael Pietrzak.