ANTenna Blog -- Hardware & Software

More than three-quarters of midsize companies have adopted some form of virtualization, according to a just-released study. And while prices may be dropping for the products, respondents said cost is one of the top reasons their businesses have not jumped on the virtualization bandwagon.

More key findings from the study (.pdf) include:

• A reduction in hardware requirements was given by 85 percent of respondents as the primary benefit they hoped to achieve with virtualization.
• Cost savings was the most important consideration, reported half of the respondents.
• Seventy-one percent of the respondents who have deployed application virtualization technologies prefer systems management tools for virtual and physical systems offered in a single, integrated product.
• While 35 percent of respondents cited cost as the reason they hadn't adopted virtualization, 37 percent said they hadn't because of their lack of virtualization experience.
• Almost half of the respondents said they could do more with their budgets, owing directly to virtualization.

These findings come just a month after IDC reported that worldwide unit sales of virtualization software for the small- and midsize-business market grew by 60 percent.

And while it's been said that virtualization could change the world -- or at least how companies are run -- vendors are still looking for ways to convert the hold-outs.

Don't Miss: How To Avoid Virtualization Vendor Lock-In

In these rough economic times, trying to convince a businessperson to purchase more hardware and software can be a challenge. "People are being cautious about making new investments," Rob Meinhardt told me. Meinhardt is CEO and co-founder of KACE, a systems management appliance company that commissioned the study by King Research.

But Meinhardt pointed out that while virtualization involves up-front costs, companies often end up saving money by consolidating servers and therefore freeing up square footage as well as conserving energy.

Maybe what the midsize market is still waiting for, however, is just a simple way to install virtualization products.

The study, "Virtualization and the Mid-Market: A Survey of Technology Professionals," received 519 responses from hands-on IT professionals, IT managers, IT executives, and others. The survey mainly focused on the responses from 291 of the participants from midsize companies.