In Feb of 2009, CRN reported Gartner's predictions that by 2013, between 10 percent and 15 percent of enterprise PCs will be virtualized. But by May of that same year, virtualization pundit Brian Madden painted a far bleaker picture from the technology with the stinging headline "How far along the hype cycle is actually VDI? My guess is Phase 3: "Trough of Disillusionment" (note that stage 2 was "peak of inflated expectations").
Now that we are more than 2 yrs beyond Madden's post, what's the state of desktop virtualization? There are certainly numerous players in the space, including Citrix, VMware, Wyse, and Pano Logic, simply to name a few.
On the heels of VMworld 2011 this week I'd a discussion with Pano Logic CEO John Kish (former CEO of Wyse Technology) to obtain some context on the early market hype, the subsequent evolution of the marketplace, and where we are now. Will the "year of the virtualized desktop" actually come?
Kish notes that the first generation of virtualized desktops, while lengthy on promises, simply did not deliver on their claims of computing performance or financial savings benefits. At best, early virtualized desktop deployments were suitable only for workers in positions that experienced lots of turnover and who only handled (and had access to) a limited range of computing tasks. In these instances, computing performance was certainly not important.
Thus, despite the hype around desktop virtualization, enterprises and other large businesses didn't buy in. In fact, there was a backlash of sorts towards VDI--performance sucked and cost benefits weren't compelling. Two factors surfaced that possess since turned the tide on desktop virtualization--the recession and innovation.
Research organization Gartner forecasted $3. 6 trillion dollars in IT spending in 2011--the same figure they predicted for 2009 prior to the full onset of the recession.
By necessity, small businesses needed to make use of the cost savings (infrastructure, energy, maintenance, and management) desktop virtualization offered. The recession brought life to this computing model.
The momentum behind the small-business virtual desktop deployments wouldn't be sustained if the computing experience did not improve significantly compared in order to first-generation VDI. And if the Sarrel Group's recent independent performance benchmark is actually any indication, the new generation of virtual desktop technology has met the actual computing performance standards required by users.
Today, similar to the adoption route that Linux took, hundreds and thousands of proof-of-concept desktop virtualization deployments are actually surfacing at the enterprise level. So, while it's probably still premature to predict if this is actually the year of the virtual desktop, it does seem to have survived the actual over-hype and unrealized promises of its checkered past.