No need to speculate anymore. Last week, Dell announced that they will be offering the VMware ESX3i hypervisor as well as the embedded Citrix XenServer hypervisor (called XenServer Express Edition). These embedded hypervisors are available as options in two new virtualization optimized servers: the Dell PowerEdgeT R805 and R905. The addition of these embedded hypervisor cost:

• $99 for ESX3i
• $299 for XenServer Express

The $200 price difference is obvious but I'm sure that XenServer experts would point out that for those extra $200 you get a GUI with XenServer Express.

What's also interesting is that Dell took the opportunity to announce that these two new Dell PowerEdge servers supposedly scale a hell of a lot better than comparable models at HP, IBM or Sun: "The Dell PowerEdge R900 and R905 can deliver the ultimate in 4 socket virtualization performance as some of the first servers to support 60 virtual machines in VMmark  testing1, with 23 percent higher virtualization performance than the HP ProLiant DL580 G5, 8 percent higher than the IBM System x3850, and 16 percent higher than the Sun Fire X44501. The PowerEdge R905 delivered price per virtualization performance at 25 percent less cost than the IBM x3850, 36 percent less cost than the Sun X4450, and 15 percent less cost than the HP Proliant DL580. This is in addition to Dell’s leadership with number 1 virtualization performance benchmarks in 2 socket servers with the PowerEdge M-Series blades and the PowerEdge 2950III."

Read the entire press release.