This week’s VMworld Europe show will give the many interested vendors a chance to reiterate the business value of virtualisation.

But if virtualisation is so good, why is the figure normally quoted for the actual percentage of servers virtualised anywhere between 10 and 25 per cent, while for desktops it looks to be an order of magnitude lower?

The good news for virtualisation vendors is that those figures show how big the market could be. If the majority of firms’ server estates are indeed left to be consolidated, then we need to look no further for the reason why VMware’s share price went through the roof. When virtualisation does take off, however, it will be the server hardware vendors crying into their beer, as new server rollouts occur virtually.