VMWare this week reported $608.2 million in revenue for the quarter ended December 31, 2009, representing an 18 percent increase the same quarter one year ago. It was also considerably higher than what most analysts were expecting, which had the company pegged at about $554 million.

Playing a big role in VMWare's strong quarter performance was services revenue, which catapulted 52 percent to $303.9 million. This was enough to offset declines in new licenses sales.

It wasn't all good news, though. Net income for the quarter took a steep backwards slide to $56 million, or $0.14 per share, compared to $111 million, or $0.29 per share in the same quarter one year ago. When looking at the full fiscal year, however, revenue was $2 billion, up 8 percent from $1.9 billion in 2008.

It's been a tough year for data center managers, who have battled against a global recession for the better part of 2009 and watched as their IT budgets went in the wrong direction, particularly as demand for services ramped up. But having weathered the economic storm, the suits in charge hope 2010 brings more money to the table to devote to IT.

"They're hoping to see budgets again in 2010," said Roger Kay, an analyst with Endpoint Technologies Associates. "Some dough is what they'd like. They're all for refreshing clients now that [Microsoft's Windows 7] is here, and generally shortening the average system life, but [they] have been severely constrained this year."

Whether or not data center managers get this wish remains to be seen. According to research firm Gartner, worldwide IT spending slid 5.2 percent in 2009, while enterprise spending dropped nearly 7 percent. Sure, IT spending is expected to grow by 3.3 percent in 2010, but at the same time, more than half of all CIOs surveyed said they expect their budgets to remain flat or decline in 2010.

It's not all about money, though. According to Bob Gill, an analyst with TheInfoPro, IT professionals put virtualization and cloud computing high on their wish lists.

For the next three years, Microsoft and NetApp will collaborate to deliver technology solutions in virtualization, private cloud computing, and storage and data management, the two companies jointly announced on Tuesday.

"Microsoft is committed to driving highly scalable dynamic datacenter solutions with innovative partners like NetApp," said Bob Kelly, corporate vice president of infrastructure server marketing, Server and Tools Business at Microsoft. "Through the deeper integration of server, virtualization, management and storage technologies, Microsoft and NetApp customers can expect datacenter solutions that help them reduce costs, increase performance, and reach new levels of efficiency."

The companies said that as part of the alliance, they will work together to expand product collaboration and technical integration activities in areas such as virtualized infrastructure solutions based on Windows Server 2008 R2, Microsoft Hyper-V Server 2008 R2, Microsoft System Center, and NetApp storage systems; Sotrage and data management solutions for Microsoft Exchange Server, Microsoft Office SharePoint Server, and Microsoft SQL Server; and cloud computing and hosted services that provide integrated data protection.

Sun Microsystem's on Monday released what it's billing as a "significant new version" of Sun VirtualBox, version 3.1. The refreshed software includes a bunch of new features, but none more noteworthy than a live migration feature called Teleportation.

"Today's enterprises expect to deliver a 24/7, always available, computing service. The ability to teleport running virtual machines from one computer to another allows system administrators to perform essential maintenance with zero downtime of their IT systems. As a cross-platform hypervisor, VirtualBox allows customers to easily evaluate and deploy virtualized systems, using their existing x86 hardware, operating systems, and skillsets," said Jim McHugh, vice president Datacenter Software marketing at Sun.

Other new tricks up VirtualBox's sleeve include improved snapshot capabilities, 2D video acceleration, better execution speed, and optimized memory handling the company claims results in performance increases of 30 percent over previous VirtualBox releases.

VirtualBox 3.1 is available now and is free of charge for personal use. Enterprise licenses and subscriptions are also available, which start at $30 per user per year.