Virtualization has saturated the market in terms of awareness, but implementation of this highly efficient technology is still reserved for early adopters. After many months of being the media darling, virtualization has only managed to infiltrate about 10% of Fortune 100 businesses. Should we be concerned at the rate businesses are adopting virtualization?

Through recent discussions with Fortune 100 CEOs and CIOs, it is evident that the past 12 months have been the proving grounds for virtualization. Industry leaders that I have talked to from the Financial, Pharmaceutical, Media and Broadcasting space recognize that the value of virtualization goes beyond just cost savings. The real strategic driver of virtualization is the ability to deploy new applications in hours instead of months; which can translate into drastically shrinking the time to market for new products and services.

Over the next 12 months, that 10% will certainly grow as more and more large enterprises see the value on their bottom line, improvement in business processes and the acceleration of new products and services. We’ll see more integration, customization and validation as time goes on. Even though most of the Fortune 100 has already deployed some virtualization, the opportunity for growth is astounding. One Pharmaceutical company I spoke with plans to virtualize 80% of its applications by 2012…starting now.

The rate at which large enterprise businesses are starting to adopt virtualization technology is about to reach the tipping point. We’re excited to be part of the process, by developing solutions that help large enterprises gain the benefits of virtualization across a much broader range of applications.