2010 Prediction: Margaret Lewis, AMD
Whither the Next-Generation Desktop?
Client computers are key in the efforts by businesses and public organizations of all sizes to reduce costs and enhance workforce productivity. The challenge lies in the fact that the client computer is closely tied to its user. This results in a delicate balancing act where the needs of different types of workers—task workers vs. knowledge workers vs. mobile workers—who each have unique application and access requirements, have to be considered along with the needs of IT to help ensure data and application security, manageability, flexibility, and scalability.
The “next-generation” client computers are envisioned as the solutions that addresses the needs of both workers and IT by combining client virtualization and superior graphics with a choice of devices, from full-featured PCs to “fat” notebooks to ultrathin notebooks and thin clients. Client virtualization is a rapidly emerging market. CIO.com recently reported IDC’s latest predictions that virtualization spending will increase from $6.5 billion in 2006 to $15 billion in 2011 – with desktop virtualization making up roughly $2 billion of that. Gartner forecast that the hosted virtual desktop (HVD) market is expected to reach 49 million seats worldwide and bring in $65.7 billion in revenue (or 40% of the worldwide professional PC market) by 2013.
In a recent blog Natalie Lambert, a former principal analyst at Forrester Research, pointed to 2012 as the year when the “next-generation” desktop would become mainstream. Recognizing that enterprises can define the “next-generation” desktop in different ways and can implement client virtualization through several methods (virtual desktops, streaming applications, and client hypervisors), what technologies need to be in place in the next year to make 2012 a reality?
Continued Maturation of Hosted Client Models
User experience with client virtualization has lacked the response and visual richness of the full-function PC, presenting a barrier to widespread adoption beyond task workers. With recent announcements, Citrix, VMware, and Microsoft continue to drive the development of their respective software products to help improve user experience so that the remote computer look and feel more like the user's local Windows Vista® desktop experience as well as the manageability of virtual desktop environments.
Citrix and VMware recently introduced new products that address user experience issues. Citrix XenDesktop 4 provides components that are designed to simplify application delivery and deliver a high-definition experience, including support for 3D graphics, while VMware View 4 is intended to deliver rich, personalized virtual desktops as a managed service while reducing the total cost of desktop ownership.
For its part, Microsoft launched Windows Server 2008 R2 and Windows 7 for desktops. Windows Server 2008 R2 was designed to improve Hyper-V capabilities and Remote Desktop Services with enhancements to reliability manageability, and performance with additional support for its Virtual Desktop Infrastructure.
Client Hypervisors
It is Microsoft’s Windows XP mode in Windows 7 Professional, Ultimate, and Enterprise versions that promises to bring virtualization to the masses. This new capability gives a much larger audience–from Fortune 500 companies to SMBs, small startups, and consumers–a taste of client virtualization, removing some of the barriers to widespread adoption. With virtualization as a core feature of the client OS, businesses can test out virtualization without buying into another infrastructure software.
