It was just a matter of time before one Linux distribution, for consumer or enterprise use, would switch its virtualization engine from Xen to KVM.
The inclusion of KVM in the Linux kernel, along with the controversy influence that Microsoft first and Citrix then appy to the Xen project, led to this.
The suspects that Citrix is not fully commited to the open source project after acquiring XenSouce may be a further factor.
Canonical’s decision to drop Xen in favor of KVM may remain an isolated case, but anyway Ubuntu is one of the most popular distro among consumers (DistroWatch reports that it’s the most downloaded of 2007).
The influential example may be followed by other distributions like Fedora, which already implements KVM side by side with Xen.
It’s worth to remember in fact that Fedora is controlled by Red Hat, which is in hasty competition with Novell. But while Xen is implemented by both companies, only Novell has a tight partnership with Microsoft, which has a tight partnership with Citrix, which is now able to influece the Xen development.
It’s easy to imagine how likely is a Red Hat departure from the Xen bandwagon.