The economics of desktop virtualization - Computerworld Blogs - 5 views
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Ihering Alcoforado on 10 Feb 12Martin Ingram Virtually Everything More posts | Read bio December 28, 2010 - 3:09 P.M. The economics of desktop virtualization 4 Comments TAGS:desktop virtualization, enterprise, finance, government, healthcare, hosted desktop virtualization, PC IT TOPICS:Cloud Computing, Cybercrime & Hacking, Desktop Apps, Emerging Technology, Healthcare IT, Laptops & Netbooks, Virtualization, Windows With Thanksgiving and Christmas behind us and the New Year upon us, it is time to take stock and see what changed for desktop virtualization in 2010. One thing is very clear: We have moved from desktop virtualization being 'about to take off' to 'has taken off' -- the evidence for this is pretty clear in the number of licenses sold. With volumes sold in the low millions, desktop virtualization is way beyond the tryout and pilot stage. However, desktop virtualization is not yet for every user. There are a number of areas where it's still not a good fit. For example, a user who does not always have access to the Internet from his or her laptop may not be able to use a hosted virtual desktop. This is a problem that will be addressed by client hypervisors in coming years. These provide the management benefits of desktop virtualization to the intermittently connected user. For now, they are very new but will become critical for mobile workers and may also have a major role to play in bringing down the costs of desktop virtualization for non-mobile users as well. Of perhaps more concern is the question of the economic basis for hosted virtual desktops. This has recently become more visible thanks to Microsoft's paper 'VDI TCO Analysis for Office Worker Environments,' which compares the total cost of ownership of traditional PCs and their virtual desktop alternatives. Their conclusion is that hosted virtual desktops are more expensive to deliver than a traditional, well-managed PC. There are a number of interesting points and conclusions to draw from this document. Firstly, Micros
