Following just over a month after the release of its flagship blogging/content management platform Movable Type 4.2, Six Apart this week announced the release of Virtual Movable Type, which promises to simplify the process of getting an instance of Movable Type up and running.Virtual Movable Type is, as its name implies, a virtual machine with everything you need to run Movable Type 4.2 preinstalled. This means you can fire it up on any number of virtualization platforms and get a full Movable Type Pro installation ready for testing, development, or content creation quickly.

Anil Dash, writing on the Movable Type blog, sums up the release well:

You can download Virtual Movable Type and run it on your own laptop or your own server in just a few minutes, using any common virtualization software. If you've got an old Windows server sitting in the corner, get the free VMWare player and grab Virtual MT. Or if you're a Mac user who's got Parallels or VMWare so that you can run Windows applications, that same platform will let you run the new Virtual Movable Type.

Virtual Movable Type is a partnership between Six Apart, the company behind Movable Type, and JumpBox, a company that specializes in creating virtual machines for various applications. The benefit of using a virtual machine is that all of the software and settings needed to run an application, from the operating system and core application to Web servers and database software, are pre-installed and configured, meaning setup is minimal, and you don't need dedicated, high-end hardware.

For people who want to focus on creating content and designing their site, but don't want to get mired down in the technical details of hosting it themselves or outsourcing to a third-party hosting provider, Virtual Movable Type looks to be a solid option. For more details, including a guide for getting started, visit the Virtual Movable Type download page.