Earlier published surveys prove that Virtualization is on top on every CIO´s agenda for 2008. Virtualization has become the hottest buzzword for the moment in enterprise computing. After all, just about everybody is interested in saving money and the technology area respondents said that Virtualization has got the highest percentage increase in capital spending for the year of 2007. According to the Yankee Group, 9 out of every 10 enterprises will have implemented virtualization into their IT infrastructure by the end of 2007.

- It only gets bigger and bigger!

But the interesting part about the trend toward virtualization is that it is rapidly expanding beyond the technologies such as storage and servers. We monitor new areas for usage of virtualization every day and companies such as Microsoft believes that virtualization is just at its beginning. Mike Neil, General Manager for Virtualization Strategies at Microsoft says in an interview in “Network World”, that “virtualization is still a developing market and technology”. Furthermore, for the first time in industry history, we will be able to separate the deployment of new applications from the purchase of hardware, because hardware will have evolved into a pool of resources that can be accessed on demand.

The V-conference “Virtualization Forum 2007” has never been more interesting than this year. Last week Citrix announced its acquisition of XenSource (known for its virtual infrastructure solutions). Mr. Peder Svenby director of the V conference says “This clearly shows that this years Virtualization Forum is at a perfect timing. I have never seen such an interest for virtualization and the implications of Virtualization on IT infrastructure”. If you want to get into the game, - the Virtualization Conference in October 22nd – 23rd is the premier forum of 2007. This event is a mix of the latest trends and developments, techniques. Challenges will be addressed by keynote speakers such as Virtualization Guru Mr. Alessandro Perilli, Security Expert Mrs. Joanna Rutkowksa together with top-speakers from the largest competitors VMware and Microsoft Corp of which will bring experts such as Mr. Reza Malekzadeh and Mr. Shai Ofek.

Commenting on the “Virtualization Forum 2007”, - Mr. Svenby, said he hoped that when all the best virtualization companies and keynote speakers are gathered and mixed with hands-on lab sessions, - it will be a real crowd pleaser. Last year was completely sold out so I can´t see why this year´s V-conference, “Virtualization Forum 2007” in Stockholm won´t be as successful or even better Mr. Svenby says.