The complete text of VMware's letter to partners positioning VDI on the day Citrix released XenDesktop 2.0

I'm already sick of the spin/disinformation war going on between VMware and Citrix/Microsoft. It seems like every day I open up my feedreader only to see the marketing department of one or the other talking s**t about their competitor. While things like this happen all the time, the non-stop attacks this time around (almost daily!) are ridiculous.

Tsss.... Vmware... Looks like they're affraid. Very low action!

I work for Citrix and I'm not afraid to say that I have a healthy regard for many of VMWare's products and I also have a friend who is a VMWare employee who reciprocates these feeling about Citrix.

While we are in a competitive situation all this marketing bluster really annoys me, but at the end of the day our customers will make their own product choices based on hard and fast business and technical criteria.

All of the desktop brokering and application and OS virtualisation products I have played with have their merits and disadvantages and each will find its niche in an ever expanding market.

XenDesktop demo at Application Delivery Confrence in Sydney yesterday was very very impressive. Shared disk provisioning was cool too worked very nicely. Streamed Apps, Streamed Desktops, Published Apps & Desktops, lots of nice flexible tools to build the solution you need. They the automated the building and deployment of all of it with that Workflow Studio. Very Impressive indeed.

Can someone tell me what products VMWare has that can do all this? 

If there is a marketing war, I think I know who's infront!!!

I too received this email in my inbox about 5 minutes after Citrix announced the release of XenDesktop.  Being a partner of both companies, we feel pressure from both sides to push one technology or another.  Being in this industry long enough to know better and to echo once again Shawn Bass's comments last week there is no one true solution for every client.  I have always and will always take the stance that I'm going to provide the "solution" that best fits my client and not what my vendor partners tell me to implement.

I too am tired of all the FUD floating in the air.  I'm a student of competitive strategy and as I stated yesterday in a blog post, somebody (Citrix, VMware, Microsoft, I don't really care) has to rethink their strategy and start innovating in new ways.  In new ways I mean "value innovation".  This is the prime example of "red oceans" vs. "blue oceans".  The only way to beat the competition is to stop TRYING to beat the competition.  Look for the blue water and get out of the red water.

This is at least the second email of this type that I've seen from VMware, and I've got to say, does anybody over there proofread these things before hitting the 'Send' button?  The writing is choppy and conveys a tone of petulance...  I'm amazed that a V.P. appends his name to these communications.

http://alsolorzano.com/blogs/opinion/archive/2008/05/25/vmware-what-are-you-doing-aka-the-vdi-war.aspx 

Sorry I don't like to cross post, but this e-mail really pissed me off. I had to vent myself after reading this e-mail. Citrix is not perfect, but VMware is being childish in sending out e-mails like this. Different when it was blogged in the VMware Community blogs, but unacceptable when it is an official e-mail.

Does anyone else think this smells of the old childhood argument "My Dad can beat up your Dad!" ??  If we really want to find out, let's strap some gloves on the parents and throw them in a ring.  The better one will be the one left standing at the end when the bell rings!

Working at a partner for both Citrix, Microsoft, and VMware, we get these types of letters all the time from ALL the vendors.  The regional parter sales guys for all of these companies are notorious for this type of crap.  We read them, take them with a grain of salt, and make our own decisions based upon the merits of the product.  Get over yourselves.  This is life.  It's a competitive market and each vendor is perfectly entitled to poke a stick at the other vendors.  It shouldn't offend you. 

Your just figuring that bias out? :>)

You don't think it is by chance that 'Citrix' is the only product named in the title of your browser is it?

The proof is in the pudding, my friend.  If you've gotten letters from Citrix that are in the same vein and tone as the ones from VMware, post 'em!  But I'd make sure that they're signed by a V.P.--not a regional SE in the field who's removed from headquarters and acting on his own accord. 

Here you can watch what Xen Guru Ian Pratt at Citrix Xenserver had to say about VMware's repeated FUD tactics.

We use products from both Citrix and VMWare and both Companies deliver great products. When VMWare makes remarks like: If you go for Citrix Desktop Server you'll need to buy licences for this and for that ... that might be true, but the product price for XEN systems in less than half the price of the VMWare VI3 Systems and how about if you want to use Application virtualization from VMWare... is that for free perhaps ? XEN Desktop might not be an option for everyone, but if you are already a XENAPP user it would probably make more sence for go for XEN Desktop than if you would start from scratch with VMWare.

Sure the XEN-Citrix product partnership is very young so it is quite normal that they aren't yet seamlesly integrated with each other. I'm shure that Thinstall and VI isn't that either. What I do know is that the Citrix Helpdesk is much better than the one at VMWare and that VMWare's Support contract rules are unflexible and not very client friendly. (One day overdue in paying your VMWare support contract and you can forget it: It's cancelled and can't be reinitiated...buy a new license is the answer you get.) Of course they've been used to be both market leader and the only one ON the market with this kind of products so they could do and ask whatever they wanted. Now when XEN/Citrix and other XEN based products are popping up (Virtual Iron, Oracle VM, SunVM,... ) and even MS Hyper-V, they must be serioulsy shitting in their pants to stoop that low.

I know XENServer is not as advanced yet or as compatible as VI3, but it's getting there and is certainly stable enough for Production environments. The market is big enough for both products to survive in. A little bit of competition is good for evolution.