VMTN Blog

1. Virtualization of the Enterprise Desktop Breaks Out.

The “desktop dilemma” – i.e., the business choice of whether to provide thick or thin clients for employees – will begin to be solved in 2009. Thick clients, including fully loaded personal computers (PCs) and laptops, provide employees with a rich set of applications in their desktop environment, but can be a management challenge since applications can be distributed across thousands of PCs that must be provisioned, updated, patched and secured individually. Thin clients are cheaper, more secure, and more cost-effective to manage, but traditionally have not been able to deliver the richness, flexibility, or compatibility of thick clients. Most businesses provide thin clients only for employees, such as call center staff, who can be productive in this more restrictive environment. New virtualization-based approaches will solve this dilemma by combining the benefits of both approaches – delivering rich, personalized virtual desktops to any device (whether thick or thin), while simplifying management and securing endpoints with virtual desktops hosted in the datacenter. Virtualization is the essential platform for efficient, manageable desktops in an increasingly mobile world. In addition, better remote display protocols and use of the local machine’s compute resources will ensure an even better user experience, and the combination of online and offline modes will enable use when employees are traveling or when they do not have access to a higher-speed network.