Abderdeen has released a new report that opens with:

Unveiled at Oracle OpenWorld on November 12, 2007, Oracle VM is a virtualization package based on Oracle's homegrown Linux platform and the Xen hypervisor. In addition to delivering the robustness expected of an open source system, Oracle claims that Oracle VM will offer virtualization at three times the efficiency of competing products at an annual support fee ranging from $499 to $999. While the purported efficiency of Oracle VM offers a low priced alternative to address traditional IT management issues, it could also be positioned as a solution to stem escalating power consumption at the corporate data center. This Aberdeen Market Alert explores the impact of Oracle's entrance into virtualization and how Oracle VM will not only contest VMware's dominance in this fertile market, but is likely to create industry-wide opportunities for IT efficiency.

To me, the report comes off as putting a lot of faith into Oracle's VM product based on claims made by Oracle.  Saying things like "Oracle's introduction of its new virtualization platform introduces a threat to the dominance of VMware..." may be going too far.  Personally, I still believe that Citrix and Microsoft will be the main players that find themselves in a "dogfight" with VMware over market dominance.  Oracle's claims of 3x performance are still just that, unsupported claims thrown out in a press release with no benchmark tests behind it to back it up.  What can Oracle be doing with the open source Xen product to boost performance 3x that XenSource/Citrix hasn't figured out?  And the fact that Oracle is basically throwing its Oracle VM at Oracle software users and using the "support" card to gain marketshare might not be enough.  Support on Oracle's software is still being questionned by VMware, and I'm not sure if Oracle's unfriendly stand on virtualization as a whole (support and licensing) will win them any fans in the virtualization community.

You can read Aberdeen's report, here.