Just about the only significant trend that I have not yet seen some random pundit proclaim that 2008 will be a "break-out" year of "explosive growth" for is virtualization. Despite the lack of hype, virtualization really is taking off, at least within the realms of the respondents to this CIO Magazine survey.

Some of the more interesting revelations are that fewer consultants are involved in virtualization projects than other major enterprise projects, political issues within the IT group are some of the largest obstacles, and nearly a quarter of those surveyed had already deployed virtualized desktops in their organization.

The bit about the politics isn't unexpected, that sort of thing comes up with any major upheaval in processes for any business unit. Similarly, the lower level of consultant participation is entirely predictable considering how easy the technology is to deploy and manage. But in a report that seeks to portray desktop virtualization as "A Hard Sell" I find it extraordinary that a quarter of the respondents have already deployed them and another third are planning to do so within three years. I have yet to see anything approaching those numbers in my own travels and the numbers seem to run counter to my ramblings yesterday about Vista adoption. Although you can certainly virtualize Vista, it's a considerably more expensive proposition than virtualizing Windows XP and doing so would lower ROI on the project significantly, perhaps enough to keep it from being worthwhile. If that percentage holds true across the spectrum of enterprise, then it could mean some very long-term bad tidings for Vista market-share growth.