In a special report on Virtualization, Gartner says "Virtualization is the highest-impact issue changing infrastructure and operations through 2012, changing how and what you buy, as well as how you manage it." Those are some pretty strong words, even for Gartner.

The research firm believes that virtualization is allowing organizations to get more out of their infrastructure. As a proof point, Gartner cites a small decline in the x 86 server market in 2006 as fewer physical servers are needed to run more virtualized applications.