Opinion: VMware, Citrix duke it out over desktop virtualization

CIO - If you pay any attention to the IT news, you'll realize there's one major theme for this week: desktop virtualization -- a theme fueled more by coincidental self-interest than technology.

Maybe you've seen some of the articles all around this week:

• VMware pitches virtual office desktops 101
• KVM sponsor premiers desktop virtualization
• HP client virtualization announcement
• Citrix rides a wave of virtualization success
• HP confesses love for Citrix with mobile thin client

So when you see the headline "VMware Makes Thin Client Moves," it's not because someone at VMware has just discovered the existence of the thin client.

That news came out of VMware this week because Citrix is having its own conference this week and is generating headlines by announcing partnerships and technology that would be just as accurate and/or useful to customers if they had been announced last week, or next.

VMware and the other companies that get in on the fun by announcing their own stuff are just stealing a little of the spotlight. (See "Neocleus -- A different take on desktop virtualization.")

That doesn't mean desktop virtualization technology is no good. It's been around a lot longer than server or storage virtualization, in fact, and has been successful to a limited degree in every generation of computing almost since Grace Hopper chased the moth out of the Mark II.

It's gotten better with every generation, too, to the extent that people who've never heard of desktop virtualization, remote sessions thin clients or shared-host, terminal-based computing are happily signing up for software as a service (SaaS) offerings like Google Apps and Salesforce.com, remote desktop-session players like GoToMyPC or online storage and e-mail services.

None of those is a complete desktop virtualization application; they don't make it easier to install, secure or manage vast armies of PCs or reduce the cost and hardware requirements of the PCs themselves.

They only slice off small pieces of things the end users themselves would like to do, and provide it on a shared-host, remote-session basis.

But they work; and they attract end users who, for once, are on the winning end of the something-for-nothing calculation that usually benefits only IT managers and the vendors who sell them things.

VMware and the rest of them are selling a much more complete picture of virtualization, cost-savings and simplified management. (See "Desktop Virtualization: Inside VMware's Strategy and Newest Plans" for more details.) They're excited because the number of desktops out there is so much higher than the number of servers that they figure if they can virtualize even a fraction of those, it will make them rich.