A survey conducted in October 2008 among 400 developers in U.S. and Canada shows that more than a 1/3 ofthem are involved with virtualization projects. 51% of the developers expect those projects to last at least 1 year. 56% of the developers involved with virtualization used VMware tools, said Evans Data, the research company that conducted the survey.

It found that VMware still dominates the market of virtualization products and services, but Microsoft is now the main rival of the company.

37% of the developers that use VMware technology now using Microsoft's Virtual Server. Xen products and the Red Hat's virtualization technology trail behind.

According to Evans Data, VMware tools are dominant on all levels of virtualization market, while Microsoft software is strongest among value-added resellers, system integrators, and outsource managers who aim to create custom applications for outside clients.

The main objective of the producers of virtualization technologies is to reduce energy and hardware costs and to consolidate more business applications in a single physical server.