New Hyper-V Server Standalone

Microsoft has announced a new product called Microsoft Hyper-V Server. It's a free, standalone version of Hyper-V server with limited features. Based on what I have read, it's a core-install of Server 2008, meaning you will need to use external tools, or a command shell to configure and maintain it, and all it will run is Hyper-V.

If one of your guest OSes is going to be Windows Server 2008, and you need to license it, you're probably better off just buying a license for Windows Server 2008 Standard. If you run Hyper-V on Standard, you are allowed to extend that license to a single guest OS. This is probably what most small businesses will do, and run it on a full install of Server 2008 so all of the tools to manage it are in the same spot.

I can definitely see how this standalone product will come in handy for a few niche projects. It's always better to have the option for something like this, especially since VMWare has a couple of free virtualization server options.