Yankee Group released the results from its annual 2008-2009 Global Virtualization Deployment and Usage Survey, in conjunction with the report, Virtualization Price War: VMware's Little Bighorn. The results from the independent web-based survey of 750 IT administrators and C-level executives from 20 countries indicate significant and rapid adoption of virtualization solutions within the enterprise. According to the survey, approximately 72% of the businesses affirmed that they have already deployed or plan to deploy virtualization solutions.

"Corporate enterprises are tightening their spending belts while searching for alternative Anywhere Application environments that increase cost efficiencies and without sacrificing capability or performance," said Laura DiDio, research fellow, Yankee Group. "Organizations need not look any further than the virtualization market for the appropriate solution. Thanks to the rapid commoditization and intensified competition in this market, a price war has emerged--making IT departments the true winners in this battle."

The 2008-2009 survey results indicate key trends and changes within the industry, including:

• An overwhelmingly majority--close to 75% of businesses--affirmed they will deploy virtualization in their data centers
• Disaster recovery, backup, server and licensing consolidation, which lowers total cost of ownership and accelerates return on investment, keep driving corporations to virtualize their data centers
• Two out of five users--40%--are deploying virtualization solutions from two or three different vendors
• Approximately 23% of businesses claim to use Macintosh servers to virtualize their Windows XP and Windows Vista desktop

In combination with the survey, Yankee Group also released its latest virtualization price war report, Virtualization Price War: VMware's Little Bighorn, which details the increasing competitiveness of the virtualization market.

"Market leader VMware is a company under siege and surrounded by rival vendors: Microsoft, Citrix, Novell, Oracle, Parallels, Red Hat and Virtual Iron." said DiDio. "Though it still has a 6-to-9 month technological lead, VMware has a target on its back. It is feeling the pressure to remain the market leader as emerging opponents continue to offer more powerful, high-end virtualization solutions that are 35% to 75% less expensive."