Historically, tumultuous times offer some of the best opportunities to buy stocks, and the market's recent mess surely qualifies. And though VMware (NYSE: VMW), which provides virtualization solutions, has already made a strong recovery from the recession, many investors expect even better times ahead.

In our Motley Fool CAPS community, about 92% of the 1,917 investors rating the company are bullish, so there's no shortage of reasons why VMware will thrive, three of which I've highlighted below.

But here at The Motley Fool, we're all for looking at both the good and the bad sides of an investment. Once you're done with this article, you can read the case against the stock, weigh in with your own comments below, or rate VMware yourself in CAPS.

1. Virtualization leader
The trends toward virtualization are strong, and research firm Gartner recently predicted that by 2012, 20% of all organizations will no longer own IT assets. VMware's CEO recently said the company has experienced a "qualitative change" in its customer base in the past 18 months and has a head start over competitors such as Microsoft (Nasdaq: MSFT) in the big shift toward virtualization. With a leading position in a budding market, many CAPS members see big things ahead for VMware.

2. Companies spending again
VMware recently reported big sales growth, including revenue that rose by more than a third in the first quarter. Pointing to a broad-based trend of increased spending, partner NetApp (Nasdaq: NTAP) also had a big first quarter, and the CEO of VMware's parent, EMC (NYSE: EMC), recently said its customers have begun to "emerge from lockdown mode" and have started spending again. Investors like the strong outlook for the industry, and the strong earnings growth could follow.

3. Making moves
VMware hasn't been sitting still as the virtualization shift takes place. It has been snapping up companies like Zimbra and SpringSource, and recently agreed on collaborations and deals with Google (Nasdaq: GOOG), salesforce.com (NYSE: CRM), and Novell (Nasdaq: NOVL) to create a larger footprint across a fast-developing market for computing services. Some CAPS members think the money will strengthen VMware's position in what is sure to become a key market.

To see details of what CAPS members are saying now about VMware, just click on over to Motley Fool CAPS -- or add your own thoughts directly to this story in the comments box below.