September 9th, 2009
Is desktop virtualization the next focal point?
I’m still getting my feet under me after my travel to New England, New York and New Jersey this week. So, I’m going to post a few things concerning demonstrations I saw at VMworld 2009.
It is clear to me that many suppliers are intensely focused on providing a virtualized environment for client systems, sometimes called desktop virtualization, application virtualization or user virtualization. How these suppliers are approaching this perceived market need differs from company to company. Large suppliers, such as Citrix, HP, IBM, and Microsoft, are deploying multiple strategies.
- ClearCube, HP, IBM, Pano Logic, and Wyse, offer hardware based solutions. This would include blade PCs, blade computers or creation of thin client solutions.
- Citrix, HP, Microsoft and Teredici offer remote desktop delivery protocols and tools
- Citrix, Microsoft, Red Hat and VMware are offering hypervisors that can be used to support virtual machines for either client or server environments
- Parallels and the typical cast of UNIX characters offer operating system virtualization/partitioning environments for either client or server environments
- AppZero, Thinstall, Virtual Computer, Wanova and a few others are focused on managing and provisioning some combination of user personalization, user data, applications and operating system settings for virtual client environments
In the end, this portion of the market is still immature. It is not at all clear which approach will come to predominate in the future. What is clear is that organizations that have already experienced some success with server virtualization, consolidation, orchestration and optimization are likely to turn their attention on the herd of PCs, laptops and the like are in use in their organization in the hopes of improving adminstration of ongoing operations, updates, security and the like.
Daniel Kusnetzky is a member of the senior management team of The 451 Group. He is responsible for research and publications on a broad array of technology topics. He examines emerging technology trends, vendor strategies, research and development issues, and end-user integration requirements. You can follow Dan on Twitter. See his full profile and disclosure of his industry affiliations.
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