Microsoft is applauding its virtualization and management solutions for enabling US ice cream manufacturer Wells’ Dairy to save no less that $500,000. However, at the same time, the Redmond company is using the opportunity to take a jab at rivals VMware, by advertising the cost advantages of its own products. According to Microsoft, the Windows Server virtualization solution comes with a price tag that is just one-third of what VMware has to offer. The compared products are Windows Server 2008 Enterprise with Hyper-V and Microsoft System Center Server Management Suite Enterprise on one side, and VMware’s VMware Infrastructure Enterprise with VMware vCenter Server on the other.

“By providing virtualization as part of the server operating system and management suite, thousands of customers are able to easily integrate enterprise-level virtualization solutions into their existing IT infrastructures cost-effectively,” explained Zane Adam, senior director of virtualization strategy at Microsoft. “This will help customers to scale out to highly available enterprise-wide deployments, gaining significant cost and energy savings.”

Microsoft emphasized that the $500,000 in cut costs involved expenses that would have been associated with hardware and software licenses. Wells’ Dairy ice cream and Microsoft virtualization are a perfect mix, with the company based in Le Mars, Iowa, embracing Windows Server 2008 Hyper-V and the System Center suite. The software giant indicated that Wells’ Dairy was also running solutions such as Office SharePoint Server 2007, System Center Data Protection Manager 2007, Exchange Server 2007 and SQL Server 2008.

“Our goal is to not only support but grow the business through optimal IT infrastructure and services,” revealed Mike Kooistra, director of information services at Wells’ Dairy. “We believe that a long-term vision of efficient and consolidated technologies delivers better value than short-term fixes, and will allow us to lead our industry from a business and technical standpoint.”