Sponsored By:

Is Desktop Virtualization's Promise Overstated?

April 06, 2008


InfoWorld. com
By Bill Snyder

Citrix Systems, EMC's VMware unit, Microsoft, Symantec, and other big dogs have shelled out more than $2 billion on acquisitions related todesktop virtualization in less than two years. But now that they've got the technology, it's not at all clear that customers will buy it.

Indeed, analysts and surveys of big IT buyers point to different conclusions about corporate appetite for the technology.

"Desktop computing, as it is practiced in enterprises today, is broken. Windows desktops are not secure. They are plagued by email-borne viruses and other malware. For this and other reasons, they are too costly to manage," says Rachel Chalmers of the research firm 451 Group.

Chalmers cites a survey of 376 IT buyers by ChangeWave Research showing that 60 percent already have budgets earmarked for virtual desktop technologies.

Desktop virtualization moves the actual desktop to the datacenter and provisions a copy to the user as needed. The promise for IT is that users can no longer mess up the desktop image that IT has decided is stable and authorized. Desktop virtualization also promises to let IT separate the various OS and application layers, thus making it easier to protect the core OS from other components and to rebuild any compromise pieces on the fly.

Is desktop virtualization's promise overstated?

Wait a minute. I certainly won't argue that the Windows desktop isn't broken, but is it really accurate to imply that desktop (remember, we're not talking about servers here) virtualization can fix all those ills? I'm not so sure. And neither are buyers.

Just last month, Intel released a survey that paints a somewhat less bullish picture than ChangeWave's. According to that survey, 39 percent of the enterprises have a current deployment of desktop virtualization, but the number of companies doing "broad deployments" of server virtualization and related technologies such as application streaming, was in single digits.

And then there's a recent survey by our sister publication CIO, which found that 25 percent of enterprises were using desktop virtualization and another 13 percent planned to do so within a year. But 21 percent said it would be one to three years before they deployed, and 37 percent said they were not interested.

Unclear purpose, emerging alternatives weaken the case

"Desktop virtualization's greatest obstacle is the clarity of the business case," Burton Group analyst Chris Wolf told CIO. "Until the technology matures, you're not going to see the 12- to 18-month ROI that's common with server virtualization today. That's why I've seen enterprises willing to dip their toe in the water but not quite ready to jump in feet first."

Adding to the uncertainty are the multiple flavors of desktop virtualization, which Chalmers categorizes this way: client-hosted, device-hosted, server-hosted, and cloud-hosted. "We also recognize four closely related technologies: OS streaming, application streaming, OS-hosted virtualization, and terminal services," she says.

Chalmers adds that other mainstream computing companies, including CA, Hewlett-Packard, and IBM, whose core business includes managing traditionally configured and provisioned Windows desktops, are responding to the "threat" of desktop virtualization by building, as opposed to buying, their own solutions.

It's worth remembering that virtualization of all types isn't really a new idea. "Despite the appearance of rising to stardom almost overnight, virtualization is in fact a technology that dates back to the earliest days of computing and is really an ongoing phenomenon with an evolving role in corporate IT infrastructure," says Forrester analyst Galen Schreck.

Old or new, there's plenty of smoke here. But how much fire, and by that I mean profit for vendors and value for buyers, is a lot less clear. Rockville, Md. -- Consumers' intentions to purchase laptops and desktops in the next 90 days are at the lowest point they have been in a year, according to a report on PC spending from ChangeWave. The report is based on a February survey of its affluent ChangeWave Alliance members.

The research firm, which regularly surveys its members on their consumer spending intentions, is reporting only 8 percent of respondents to a recent survey said they'll buy laptops in the next 90 days, and only 6 percent said they plan to buy a desktop.

Among those consumers who are planning a laptop or PC purchase, ChangeWave found that "planned purchases of Apple computers remain relatively strong, even in this slower market."

The firm said the manufacturer remains the leader for planned consumer laptop buying in the next 90 days, with 31 percent of those who plan to buy a laptop saying they will purchase an Apple. This number was only a two-point drop from the all-time record high the firm recorded in its survey the month before.

ChangeWave also reported Apple-planned-desktop purchases, down 1 point from January to 28 percent, are "also near record levels."

In all, ChangeWave said, "Apple-planned-buying numbers are up more than 50 percent over a year earlier."

Other manufacturers, in a particular Dell and Hewlett-Packard, are not weathering the storm quite as well.

"After experiencing an uptick in planned consumer buying in our previous survey, Dell is once again losing traction going forward," said the report.

Twenty-eight percent of respondents who said they were planning on buying a laptop said they'd buy a Dell, down 2 points from the last survey. Planned desktop purchases dropped 4 points since the last ChangeWave survey to 32 percent.

Finally, ChangeWave said "HP consumer PC sales also look weaker going forward – led by a big drop in planned buying of desktops (18 percent; down 5 points). Laptops (19 percent) are also registering a two-point decline."

InfoWorld.com