I keep hearing "virtualization" thrown around in the IT office. Can virtualization's benefits apply to UC?

Virtualization can be as broad a topic as UC (unified communications). I think you will likely hear two conversations around the topic of virtualization and the first is likely to be projects that enterprise IT departments are heavily involved in to reduce the number of servers supporting the company and it's customers.

Mainly the cost of supporting each server just in electric cost and of course cooling and maintenance (software, patches) is driving IT folks to consolidate applications and run more on virtual servers by using popular VMware. Energy savings in some states including efforts by the Department of Energy running the Energy Star program identified servers in the U.S. are growing and so is their appetite for power. California was the first state with a utility company willing to pay companies to virtualize servers. Whether or not benefits of virtualization can apply to UC depend upon which components of UC can run on virtualized machines.

A second area that applies to the discussion is using "virtual UC" and related services such as hosted IP-PBXs or voice related features. Companies leverage bandwidth to utilize UC and voice services offered by providers in lieu of building within their own solutions within their networks. Organizations can also try hosted UC services and very rapidly deploy a solution within their organization.