A number of news sources published comments by Microsoft’s Mike Neil:
"Microsoft believes the claims made in VMware’s whitepaper contain several inaccuracies and misunderstandings of our current license and use policies, our support policy and our commitment to technology collaboration," said Mike Neil, Microsoft virtualization GM in a statement. "We believe that we are being progressive and fair with our existing licensing and use policies and creating a level playing field for partners and customers. We are deeply committed to providing high-quality technical support to our customers who are utilizing virtualization technology. In addition, we are committed to working collaboratively with industry leaders to foster an environment of interoperability and cooperation that best serves our customers."
“We believe it’s better to resolve VMware’s claims between our two companies so that we can better serve customers and the industry," Neil added in the statement. "EMC is a long-time partner of Microsoft. We’ve extended this courtesy to VMware due to our mutual customers and partnership with EMC. We are committed to continuing to collaborate with VMware as we have been doing on regular basis. Consistent with this, Microsoft believes that we will be able to accommodate a mutually agreeable solution between our two companies and clear up any existing misunderstanding with regard to the points raised in the whitepaper.”
It does read like that either Microsoft is taking the high road on this or that something else is in the works and this was released to keep the media quiet. You could read more into the comments about being "best mates" with EMC who happen to own VMware but I’ll leave that up to your imagination.
Both make good products in this market. I’d hope that for their customers, they can work things out like was done with Citrix and MS.
Credit: The Register.