Here’s an comparission of Microsoft Hyper-V Server 2008 R2 and VMware pricing. While with Microsoft Hyper-V Server 2008 R2, you can now implement HA and live migration without having to buy a premium management SKU, which could save you thousands of dollars. At the same time, VMware didn't actually change the price of VI Enterprise or vSphere Enterprise. It went from $5,750 for a two processors host to $2,875 per processor, which is the same thing.  Thus, for many VMware customers, there is no cost savings in vSphere, said Edwin Yuen of Microsoft.