Given all the cacophony around JeOS, and the vigorous (and probably correct) assertions that virtual appliances are the future model for application delivery and deployment, you could be excused for tolling the death knell for server operating systems.

After all, should you desire to deploy an application in this alleged future, you would just download the appropriate virtual appliance, plunk it on your favorite hypervisor and viola! Who needs an operating system (described memorably by FastScale as a “bloated 2GB DLL”) that brings with it a nightmare of configuration mismatches, incomprehensible incompatibilities and other sundry pain points?

The reality, as is often the case, is a little more nuanced. The operating system hasn’t vanished – it’s simply morphed into a more svelte entity that’s comes bundled within each virtual appliance and only contains the components that the application actually needs.

So what’s changed is not the existence of an operating system, but rather how it is packaged & distributed. The era of the one-size-fits-all operating system pushed out through hardware OEMs may be drawing to a close. What we could see instead is a buffet of operating system components that application vendors will selectively mix-n-match and then distribute as part of their virtual appliance.

This transition from a hardware OEM to a software OEM licensing & distribution model will likely be heart wrenching for operating system vendors. Then again, if there are any vanishings in the coming years, it’ll probably be of those operating systems that failed to adapt.