With a very brief note, The Xen.org community announces that Xen reached the Release Candidate status and so it’s near its general availability, expected before the end of Q1 2010.
There’s a long list of reasons to wait for Xen 4.0.
One of them is the support for the software switch called Open Virtual Switch that will compete with the Cisco Nexus 1000V.
More importantly, the availability of Xen 4.0 may trigger a major launch of Oracle in the virtualization space (assuming its acquisition of Sun will be ever approved) and clarify its strategy against VMware, Citrix and Microsoft.
In the same way, it will be extremely interesting to see how Citrix will enhance the Xen 4.0 codebase to make XenServer more competitive.