From its genesis in x86-based servers, virtualization technology has spread rapidly into storage and the network. Today, it's at your desktop, in your processors and memory, and in your switches. It's shaping hardware and software appliances -- heck it's even in your smartphones. Tom Nolle, CEO of CIMI, a high-tech consulting firm, describes three essential missions for virtualization: as a client technology, as a server technology, and as a network technology. These three areas, he says, are converging around the idea of cloud computing. On the winding route from that first server virtualization project to the cloud of tomorrow, you never know where virtualization will wind up next. But watching leading-edge enterprises can provide a clue.