A generic virtualization strategy is the equivalent of leaving money on the table; optimization of the virtualization for the underlying hardware is the only way to maximize the efficiency and value proposition of your virtualization strategy.

My comments:

English is such an explanatory language that, often, you can infer the meaning of a phrase or expression from the rest of the sentence or paragraph, i.e. via context.

Here, you can probably infer that “leaving money on the table” is equivalent to not being able to “maximize the efficiency and value proposition of your virtualization strategy,” whatever that is.

Anyways, to “leave money on the table” is a phrase descriptive of situations where one fails to make the most of the occasion.

Take negotiations for salary for instance. Employees, for not wanting to appear greedy or some other reason, often fail to ask for a maximum contract that the employer is willing to give. The employer, for example, is prepared to give you 10,000 dollars per month. But the employer is usually smart enough to ask you to name a price first and when you timorously ask for 8,000 per, the employer gladly says “Yes” and the two of you shake hands on that.

In this case, you will have left 2,000 dollars on the table.

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Go to Zhang Xin's column

本文僅代表作者本人觀點，與本網立場無關。歡迎大家討論學術問題，尊重他人，禁止人身攻擊和發布一切違反國家現行法律法規的內容。

About the author:

Zhang Xin（張欣） has been with China Daily since 1988, when he graduated from Beijing Foreign Studies University. Write him at: zhangxin@chinadaily.com.cn, or raise a question for potential use in a future column.