One of our beliefs is that virtualization will find its way into the broader markets by the year 2010. Like all new technology that enters, there is a life-cycle for adoption that products go through before crossing the chasm into the mainstream markets. Virtualization is currently in the Innovator stage, where vendors are competing with one another to capture the attention of the early adopter market. See this post illustrating the ongoing battle between leading virtualization vendors VMWare and XenSource.

Cutting through the vendor hype are two industries that we believe will help push virtualization beyond the early adopters, healthcare and financial services. Just this week IBM announced the consolidation of the data center at St. Anthony’s Medical Center in St. Louis using their virtualization technology. This is a giant leap for the healthcare industry because not only does it eliminate administrative and IT costs, but patient records, tests and results are now being archived which will enhance overall patient care. As other industries recognize how organizations like St. Anthony’s can move critical applications and information to virtual environments, they will be more likely to introduce virtual environments into their own organizations. Of course, these organizations will only do this once they are convinced in the reliability of those virtual applications.