Who's missing what? A checklist of what each vendor needs to get to VDI+ by 2010.

Last week I wrote about the four technical capabilities that needed to evolve in order for VDI to become mainstream. Since that article came out, I've started informally calling this "VDI+." So "VDI" is today's SBC-based...

Blog Post by Brian Madden on July 03, 2008.

Microsoft Application Virtualization 4.5, Virtual Fantasy or Actual Reality?!

Microsoft Application Virtualization 4.5 is the new name for Microsoft SoftGrid and is Microsoft’s application virtualization solution. In this article, Ruben Spruijt explains what the essential advantages of application virtualization are, and...

Blog Post by Ruben Spruijt on July 02, 2008.

As the Clouds grow

This industry is full of companies vying for your business, to put your apps and infrastructure into the cloud and soon there will be hundreds of cloud infrastructures.  So imagine that you are in place in the cloud (virtual infrastructure of...

Blog Post by Michael Keen on July 02, 2008.

Part 2 of "Some thoughts around the latest buzz of Cloud Computing"

First, it is really obvious that there is no clear definition of "cloud computing", but that doesn't seem to dampen the excitement and enthusiasm for this new computing model.  I guess so that we can put some more structure around...

Blog Post by Michael Keen on July 01, 2008.

Citrix XenServer is here to stay

I just want to quickly clarify the editorial I wrote yesterday. Other bloggers have written that I suggested that Citrix XenServer is going away. This is not what I believe. I firmly believe that Citrix XenServer is here to stay, and that it was a...

Blog Post by Brian Madden on June 30, 2008.

Prediction: Citrix will drop the open source Xen hypervisor for Hyper-V. The rest of the open source world drops Xen for KVM.

Today, VMware dominates the virtualization market in the enterprise. The only other real competitor is the open source Xen, whether in the form of Citrix's XenServer commercial product, one of the open source flavors like Sun xVM, or the actual...

Blog Post by Brian Madden on June 30, 2008.

Remote Desktop Connection (Terminal Services Client 6.1) for Windows XP SP2 x86 platforms

Hello everyone, we heard a lot of feedback from you about the need for the Remote Desktop Connection client 6.1 to be made available as a standalone install for Windows XP SP2 to ease deployments of Windows 2008 Terminal Services. In response to...

News item from Terminal Services Team Blog, on June 25, 2008.

What is User Profile Manager? How does it work?

User Profile Manager provides an easy and reliable way to manage user personalization settings in Windows environments (the user's profile).  A user's profile consists of registry settings (stored in HKEY_CURRENT_USER) along...

News item from The Official Citrix Blog, on June 25, 2008.

Prediction: VDI will be ready for wholesale desktop replacement in 2010. Here's how we'll solve the problems to get there.

Today, VDI is a niche solution. What's keeping VDI from taking over all enterprise desktops? There are four basic technical capabilities that are required for it to become mainstream: Single disk image for many users Remote...

Blog Post by Brian Madden on June 23, 2008.

Softricity Purchase: Year 2 and beyond

  It has been about two years since Microsoft purchased Softricity, and probably a good time to take one more look at what has happened since, and is happening now.   [For reference, when Microsoft purchased Softricity, I spoke with...

Blog Post by Tim Mangan on June 06, 2008.

The simple way to solve remote display protocol compatibility problems: Don't use a remote display protocol! Is offline VDI / "client-based computing" the future?

Last week I wrote that one of the main challenges in the leading VDI products on the market today is that their remote display protocols—ICA and RDP—don't work with all applications. I also put forward the idea that until VDI can work...

Blog Post by Brian Madden on June 05, 2008.

Do you think Citrix XenDesktop is cheaper than XenApp? Don't forget about the Microsoft OS licensing costs. Then think again.

This blog entry was written by Rob Hammersmith, a Citrix sales engineer in the US central region. He wrote it in response to some blog items I posted over the past few weeks. Rob allowed me to post it here as long as I made it clear that these are...

Blog Post by Brian Madden on June 02, 2008.

Citrix's ICA problem, while not as bad as VMware's RDP problem, is still a problem for widespread VDI adoption

Citrix's release of XenDesktop (and VMware's crazy response) are still dominating my thoughts this week. Back in January, I wrote that Citrix XenDesktop would be a stronger product than VMware's VDI offering. Now that XenDesktop is...

Blog Post by Brian Madden on May 29, 2008.

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

The day that Citrix released XenDesktop 2.0, VMware sent the following email to their partners: Dear <name>, Yesterday, Citrix announced the immediate availability of XenDesktop, a collection of technologies intended to provide a...

Blog Post by Brian Madden on May 27, 2008.

VIrtualization Vendor Matrix

I had a meeting with a group of executives during lunch the other day.  It was one of those that the "geek" gets to show up and they ask a bunch of dumbass questions (at least that is what it has been), like I can't get my...

Blog Post by Michael Keen on May 21, 2008.

VDI for hundreds of apps and thousands of users? A case study where we recommended this instead of a Terminal Server-based solution

A very strange thing happened yesterday. Gabe and I were working with a customer—a university—and we ended up recommending a VDI solution instead of a Terminal Server-based solution. Afterwards I was feeling, “Wow! I can’t...

Blog Post by Brian Madden on September 26, 2007.