I am digressing here from Oracle VM to discuss the server virtualization market in general. I found this article from Network World interesting in that it clearly positions the virtualization market, analyst thoughts and to me really proves that virtualization is going to grow and therefore oracle vm as it is now one of the key suppliers.
As an example. IDC is predicting that worldwide spending on virtualization software and services is expected to jump from $6.5 billion in 2006 to more than $15 billion in 2011 and Network world are predicting virtualization to be the number 1 technology for 2008 -
Anyway, here is the article:
Virtualization: Hot technology for 2008
High on hypervisors
Feature By Neal Weinberg, Network World, 01/14/08
How hot is the virtualization market? …
VMware, which created x86 server virtualization and is the dominant player in the market, is absolutely on fire. When EMC bought the company in 2003, VMware revenues were around $100 million a year. VMware’s final numbers for 2007 aren’t out yet, but the company is on pace to hit $1.5 billion. In August, EMC engineered an IPO for 10% of VMware. It turned out to be the most successful high-tech IPO since Google, with EMC raising nearly $1 billion when 33 million shares were snapped up at an opening price of $29. The stock continued to soar, exceeding $50 a share on opening day, and soon thereafter cresting at more than $125 a share. Today, VMware is selling at close to about $80 a share, which gives the company a market capitalization of around $30 billion. That’s hot.
And the virtualization market is showing no signs of slowing down. In fact, IDC is predicting that worldwide spending on virtualization software and services is expected to jump from $6.5 billion in 2006 to more than $15 billion in 2011. (Compare server management products.)
No wonder Citrix shelled out $500 million in October for open source server virtualization vendor XenSource. (Add your opinion to one of our 50 greatest networking arguments: VMware vs. Xen.)
So, if you’ve got a room full of x86 servers running at 10% utilization, what are you waiting for? Virtualization can help you consolidate servers, run your data center more efficiently, and make it easier to allocate server resources to match business requirements.
According to a recent survey by Chadwick Martin Bailey, IT decision makers decided to implement server virtualization for the following reasons (in order of importance): improve server virtualization, lower data center operating costs, improve disaster recovery/backup capabilities, create a more effective software development and testing environment and lower IT admin costs.
More of this server virtualization article in the link here http://www.networkworld.com/research/2008/011408-8-techs-virtualization.html