This IDC study provides a preliminary top-down sizing of the virtual machine software market in 2011 and a 2012–2016 forecast for this market. Historical and forecast revenue data is shown for the total worldwide market and by operating environment. This study does not contain vendor-specific revenue, market shares, or vendor profiles, all of which will be published in separate studies during 2012.

According to Gary Chen, IDC research manager, Cloud and Virtualization System Software, "Virtual machine software continues to be a key technology for the dynamic datacenter and cloud computing, but the market will significantly change in the coming years. Virtual machine software is increasingly becoming less of a standalone solution but rather an embedded component of larger solutions, such as cloud system software. The competitive situation is also in flux as competitors are releasing much improved new versions of virtualization platforms that will finally more effectively compete with VMware and change the landscape of this market."