He said virtualization will be well received among internal IT staff if business creates effective in-house cost models, which allow physical server costs to be defrayed across departments relative to usage.

VMWare systems engineer Andre Kemp said customers are concerned about availability and security rather than the nature of the environment.

"Clients don't care about whether their data is stored in a virtual or dedicated environment; they care about how secure their data is and they want to know it is available whenever they need it," Kemp said, adding businesses of all sizes can expect ROIs of up to 70 percent on current technology, a figure both Searle and Proctor agree with.

Kemp said that IT departments are very familiar with virtualization and its benefits because the technology has existed for about 20 years.

"When IT managers think back over the infrastructure they have used for the last 20 years they notice they have used virtualization in technology ranging from basic virtual device drivers, to VLANs and other things dating back to the DOS days."