In the past week the company announced it will drop the SWsoft name in favor of its youngest but fastest-rising division, Parallels Inc.

Moreover, while it plans to continue developing and marketing its desktop and server virtualization software, the company also plans to start emphasizing its management and automation software -- already popular among hosting providers -- toward mainstream corporations.

For instance, SWsoft's software already offers collaborative management features to the hosting market that allow multiple parties -- everyone from the service provider to the reseller to the customer IT administrator -- to manage a given application.

Based around a technology the company calls "container-based virtualization," Virtuozzo creates smaller virtual machines that ride on top of the operating system, rather than conventional hypervisors from VMware and other vendors whose VMs simulate the PC environment all the way down to the hardware level.

That allows Virtuozzo to create many more VMs than a typical hypervisor while using less memory and CPU.

A final version of Virtuozzo 4.0 is expected next year.

Maverick Strategies IT infrastructure manager, Victor Dolffo, expects more activity in this area of the market as virtualization technology adoption rates continue to skyrocket.

"Of course everyone will want a piece of the action but I think the real battle will be in the area of hypervisor technology," Dolffo said.

"VMWare isn't likely to be topped by anyone in the near future but I think there will be a lot more activity around server hardware that ships with embedded hypervisor technology."

Dolffo said the first sign of this battle emerged earlier this year when Citrix announced its XenSource acquisition.

He said the choices today are VMware and Xen-based hypervisors -- including derivatives from XenSource, Oracle Red Hat and Novell.

Despite economic concerns about the US economy next year, the Asia Pacific IT market is likely to maintain its momentum of growth.

Regional economies set to lead this growth are India, China, Australia, Singapore and Korea, according to Springboard Research.

Also topping the list of 2008 trends is a serious skills shortage with Pendar claiming the talent crisis will hit vendors, IT management and the investment plans of many organisations.

"A substantial portion of new IT investments will come from organisations scaling up their IT systems or building entirely new ones to drive business," he said.

"While on a macro level, there are several factors driving IT investment, it is on the micro level where we are seeing the real action.

"In 2008, CIOs will be concerned with challenges like reducing the cost of IT operations, improving business application performance, finding and retaining skilled technical people, and identifying technologies that integrate closely with the enterprise's business goals."

- with Eric Lai, Ephraim Schwartz and Manek Dubash