Virtualization for easy of management rather than consolidation
A recent Slashdot post covered an article at Interop News by Jeff Gould called "On the rPath to virtual containerization" [1]. Gould argues that virtualisation's the ease of deployment, migration, backup, etc. will actually *increase* the demand for server hardware over the long term. He offers Intel's recent investment in VMware as support for this view. He then goes on to discuss rPath, which allows ISVs to build full-stack software appliances, all the way done to the OS. rPath uses a trimmed down Linux (as small as 50 MB), significantly reducing the attack surface of the final product as well as the maintenance overhead. rPath is run by Billy Marshall, with RPM author Erik Troan as CTO; both ex-Red Hatters.
Whether virtualization can actually increase the demand for servers or not, I agree with Ashlee that the demand for servers will not go down. I think the consolidation-by-virtualization trend is having a short-term impact on sales, but that will only last as long as there is inefficiency in the data centre to exploit. After that, unless the overall demand for more computing power is stopped -- and I can't see why it would -- server sales are sure to pick up again.
[1] http://www.interopnews.com/news/on-the-rpath-to-virtual-containerization.html
Biting the hand that feeds IT
