Virtualization may have revolutionized IT, but it won’t be winning popularity contests anytime soon. A new study commissioned by a group of Cisco mConcierge partners found that 40 percent of workers aren’t even familiar with the term – and that’s including IT personnel.

About 53 percent of non-IT workers have never heard about the technology, and a mere 34 percent believe that their organizations utilize virtualization solutions. Alarmingly, 80 percent of VP- and SVP-level executives (along with 60 percent of their colleagues) don’t know whether such products could benefit their companies. Unsurprisingly, the study found that lack of awareness is the main cause of skepticism about server and desktop virtualization. Only 27 percent of the respondents who said they’re “very familiar” with the technology expressed doubts about its usefulness, and none of the participants who claimed to have “advanced computer knowledge” cited such concerns.

The advantages of virtualization are lost upon most end-users, but that doesn’t mean they’re not benefiting from it one way or another. The survey found that 46 percent of workers can access their work desktops from any device, 68 percent of whom consider this functionality either “important” or “very important” to their work. Additionally, 65 percent of the respondents who suffered a virus infection said that their machine was restored within one business day.

Virtualization introduces a lot of value to the IT department, but like all technologies, it’s a work in progress. Last month, Fusion-io pushed the envelope with a new release of its Turbine software that experts say qualifies as the first unified virtualization solution. Wikibon co-founder and CTO David Floyer went over the features that set Turbine apart from the pack in a recent interview with SiliconAngle NewsDesk host Kristin Feledy.

Check out the video below for the full analysis.