Virtualizaton is set for massive growth in 2010, putting a greater emphasis on virtualization management applications used to keep track of all these virtual workloads in the datacenter. Datamation serves up its list of 10 emerging virtualization companies IT administrators need to keep a close eye in 2010.
One of the virtualization companies who responded to my request for information asked me, “What exactly does ‘emerging’ mean?” Good question, especially since I badger marketing pros about ambiguous language like this all the time.
For the sake of this article, let’s say an “emerging” virtualization company isn’t one of the first 10 or 12 companies you think of when you think about virtualization. This definition, though, rules out 2010’s top emerging virtualization company: Microsoft.
You’re probably shaking your head and asking how in the world a behemoth like Microsoft could be considered “emerging.” Simple, they went from a virtualization punch line to a heavy hitter in a very short time. Granted, that’s the Microsoft playbook, but the fact that Microsoft is including virtualization tools in Windows 7 means they are slowly but surely conquering virtualization in the same way they did the desktop.
This time around, however, no one will be taken by surprise. Competitors have been preparing for this eventuality for quite some time. Will that foreknowledge be enough for VMware, Red Hat, Sun/Oracle, et al. to keep Microsoft at bay?
Hard to say. The following ten companies aren’t waiting to find out. Each has a unique solution that tackles some of virtualization’s most bedeviling problems.
