Someone pointed out that we didn't really say what VMware was, how much it cost, etc... Oops, sorry!... Our bad! The notice in the newsletter was rather brief, only quoting the pertinent details of the original e-mail notice we got from VMware. In my last e-mail, I should have quoted the entire original offer, rather than just the newsletter's brief notice.
Anyway, we had a MUUG meeting presentation on VMware some time ago, but neweer members wouldn't have been privvy to that...
http://www.muug.mb.ca/meetings/99-00.html#sep
Briefly, VMware is a complete virtual machine environment (with emulation at the hardware level), which permits you to run multiple guest operating systems, each in their own virtual machine. You can, for example, try out new versions of Linux as guest OS's, while still running your more stable version as the host OS. It's also got some nice features for software developers/testers to use. There are versions available for both Linux and Windows (NT/2000/XP) host OS's.
There is a web site for VMware (www.vmware.com), where you can find out more, as well as obtain a free 30-day trial license and download the full- featured program. (The trial license has no restrictions other than a time limit, as far as I remember.)
You can also get all the pricing information online at the VMware Store, accessible from their main web site. (Though I had trouble accessing it from my Mozilla browser, and had to resort to MS IE. Arg! YMMV.) The price is $299 US for the download distribution of VMware Workstation. A $100 US rebate does make for a significant discount on that, and may make it more attractive to some.
Hope this helps clear up the confusion.