EMEA leads virtualisation boom

Region set to drive growth of virtualisation market worldwide, according to latest Gartner figures

Region set to drive growth of virtualisation market worldwide, according to latest Gartner figures

Virtualisation software revenue in EMEA is anticipated to increase by more than half during 2009 with the region significantly contributing to worldwide growth, according to market watcher Gartner.

Gartner has predicted that the EMEA market will increase by 55 per cent from €330m (£298m) in 2008 to €512m in 2009. According to a recent report by the analyst, as hyperviser functionality moves to hardware, the main driver of growth will be in the server virtualisation management market, which is set to increase by 54.3 per cent to €244.8m in 2009. The market stood at ?158.7m in 2008. Gartner defines total software revenue as revenue generated from licences, upgrades, subscriptions and hosting, technical support and maintenance.

In addition, the emerging EMEA hosted virtual desktop (HVD) software market was worth a little more than €12m in 2008, which Gartner expects to more than quadruple to €56.2m in 2009. Some of the largest HVD deployments have been in the UK and Germany, according to the analyst’s report.

Huge growth area

Marc Groetelaars, director EMEA North partner organisation at VMware, said the vendor backs Gartner’s predictions that desktop virtualisation or HVD will be a huge growth area in 2009.

“Having launched our vClient initiative and VMware View product at the tail-end of 2008 we have been doing a lot of work with partners to help them fulfil this opportunity and we fully expect to see this bear fruit in 2009,” he said.

“Our recent move to implement a competency-based framework for our partners demonstrates how virtualisation is spreading from the desktop to the data centre, and many of our partners are keying in on the desktop as a potential goldmine.”

Rene Millman, senior research analyst at Gartner, said EMEA market growth will be driven by cost reduction, resource utilisation and management advantage s.

“The current recession that is affecting various economies in EMEA could prove to be a short-term brake on the uptake of virtualised technologies, so vendors must be aware of how the technology can save organisations money by better server use and lower associated power and cooling costs within data centres,” he added.

Groetelaars said: “We concur with the predicted expansion in the requirements for increasingly sophisticated management tools to control the explosive growth in servers being virtualised. The recent vSphere 4 announcement included advances in the management of security, networks and storage in a virtualised environment.”

Aad Dekkers, chief marketing officer at system integrator MTI, said Gartner’s figures were not a surprise.

“Virtualisation is now in its second phase,” he said. “It has been deployed and businesses are looking to manage that environment. Now with server virtualisation deployed, companies will be making sure that vendors give all they promised by lowering costs and power through better management for example.”

Channel support

Pete Rawden, director for channel sales UK and Ireland at storage vendor NetApp, said if Gartner’s market predictions are to be realised, UK businesses will be looking for expertise to help them use technology most effectively and will be turning to resellers and the channel for support.

Rawden said: “Although there is a clear need and cost benefit for server virtualisation, our research suggests that as many as 41 per cent of UK business leaders say they do not know enough about the technology to effectively evaluate the IT options for their business.

“Furthermore, while 74 per cent of business leaders understand the role that data protection and recovery plays in business IT support, only 25 per cent claim knowledge about virtualisation. This suggests that their knowledge is out of step with current business pressures.”

Paul Hickingbotham, solutions manager at Hammer, agreed with the report, claiming the distributor has seen a continued increase in
virtualisation, not only in the server and desktop space, but across storage as a whole.

“As Millman states, the efficiency of virtualisation can save organisations money, by lowering costs and total cost of ownership (TCO), within data centres and beyond,” he said.

UK leads the way

Gartner’s report also highlighted that the UK, Germany and France have the biggest markets in terms of adoption of virtualised platforms.

The western European market as a whole accounted for 89 per cent of total EMEA revenue in 2008 and is on track to reach €451m in annual revenue for 2009.

Within this market the UK accounted for 23 per cent of revenue, Germany made up 22 per cent and France achieved 16 per cent revenue share for 2008.

Gartner also picked out Scandinavia as a significant market, accounting for nearly one fifth of server virtualisation management software revenue in western Europe in 2008.