VMWare’s stock soared on its first day of trading yesterday, giving the company a market value upward of $10 billion, showing that virtual machines are starting to add up to real dollars.

Virtual machines, the technology that VMWare helped pioneer, allow one computer to act as many, whether it’s a Mac running Windows and the Mac operating system at the same time or a massive server running multiple instances of Windows and Linux simultaneously. Once a niche technology, virtualization is expanding rapidly as businesses try to get more bang for their server buck.

Investors are betting that virtualization technology is going to have a big impact and that VMWare will profit from its early lead in the field.

More information by Ina Fried at: Cnet