Is is time for VMware to enter the terminal server / application virtualization market?
One of my impressions from attending Citrix iForum The App Delivery Expo, presented by Citrix last week was that Citrix launched an all-out competitive war against VMware.
One of my impressions from attending Citrix iForum The App Delivery Expo, presented by Citrix last week was that Citrix launched an all-out competitive war against VMware. Citrix offers server-based computing solutions for multiple-user terminal server environments (Citrix Presentation Server) and for single-user VDI environments (Citrix XenDesktop). They also (thanks to the XenSource acquisition) offer the management of the underlying virtualization platform that's increasingly used to run all this stuff.
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In an instant, Citrix went from viewing VMware as a strategic partner to viewing them as Enemy #1. Where does that leave VMware? Let's imagine, if only for a moment even, that Citrix evolves the XenSource virtualization platform to be a hard-core competitor to VMware at multiple levels. Where does that leave VMware?
Now that Citrix called out VMware's name, is it time for VMware to fight back and start to go after some of the market that Citrix owns? Is this even feasible? Maybe instead of focusing purely on the virtualization platform, VMware can grow into the application space as well?
Let me give an example. You may recall that I've written in the past about how much I like Provision Network's Virtual Access Suite. I like it because Provision combines TS-based and VDI-based SBC into a single product, and they treat Windows XP / Vista VDI instances as nothing more than managed pools of single-user Terminal Servers.
What if VMware took that approach, but in reverse? They already have (or are building) an end-to-end solution for VDI. Why not extend this solution into the Terminal Server space? Just like Provision views VDI instances as single-user Terminal Servers, why couldn't VMware view Terminal Servers as multi-user VDI instances?
If VMware decided to do this, they'd have a "build or buy" decision to make. VMware recently bought Propero and are trying to leverage that technology into a comprehensive VDI product. What if VMware extended Propero so that it could broker connections to Terminal Servers too?
Of course everyone reading this knows that Terminal Services-based application delivery solutions are a bit more complex than a connection broker. You need application-level publishing, seamless windows, performance enhancements to RDP, connection load balancing, secure tunnels, etc, etc.
In that case, what if VMware bought someone like Provision or Ericom or HOBsoft or one of these other Terminal Server add-on products? There are some really kick-ass products out there from these smaller companies. But their main challenge is that they're made by small companies that most people have never heard of, so people are afraid of support and nervous to buy into something from a company that may or may not be around next year.
VMware + [some other app delivery company] could be pretty slick. Heck, while they're at it, they might as well buy someone like ThinStall or InstallFree and go nuts.
Who knows whether VMware really wants to do this, and where they really see the industry going. But if they did want to go after Citrix, they could do it pretty easily. Heck, with a market cap of SIX TIMES Citrix ($46B for VMware versus $7B for Citrix), VMware could just buy Citrix and be done with it. (Man, would that be the ultimate "F You" or what?")
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"Heck, with a market cap of SIX TIMES Citrix ($46B for VMware versus $7B for Citrix), VMware could just buy Citrix and be done with it. (Man, would that be the ultimate "F You" or what?")"
Let me give this a try: Microsoft has a market cap of SEVEN TIMES vmware (still 3.5x if you include EMC), Microsoft could just buy vmware and be done with it (talking about F You)
Not even doing the Microsoft v Citrix calculation.
Not sure if this logic works.... ;-)
As for VMware doing application virtualization, based on my experiences, they can't even get server virtualization right. Why would I trust them to get applications right????
Citrix should also look at buying Marathon. That technology is awesome and if Citrix purchased them (to make it a XenServer exclusive) it could be key differentiator between ESX and XenServer.
Joe
http://www.marketwire.com/mw/release.do?id=786332
An example, we are on our 3rd 700+ User Citrix environment using Vmware ESX. And are able to squeeze 20+ users on 4VM's.
I realize that the numbers sound low, but these are very Heavy Citrix users, in which 20 was MAX on the SAME physical server. (ie 20 users use 3.4+gB ram per box). And performance is good. The ESX servers with 2x quad cores, 16gb ram, are easily supporting 5CTX servers. (we only put 4 per customer demand).
I dont know XEN's Capabilities, can someone share a light on that..
And also, with XEN+Citrix= a cool combo- YET not reputation, for scability or expandibility. Maybe i am just not seeing what others see, maybe i am in need of more explanation`
So has Propero been thrown out in the skip to be replaced by Dunes version?
The thin ice here is that there's still a lack of feedback from software vendors that target desktop management. I mean that I know just a couple of vendors that offer complete and fully integrated solutions capable of working with virtualized stuff. However, I might say that even today the phrase that "The problem is that if you want to do this right now, you need products from several different vendors." if I understand its meaning properly requires revising as it's not correct anymore. For example, in our company we are using Scriptlogic's Desktop Authority and with this desktop management tool we are able to manage all of our environments be it our basic physical environment, or Presentation Server http://www.scriptlogic.com/Terminal_Server.asp . The tool also supports configuring virtualized (VMWare) environments. So, you see, even today it's already possible to configure a virtual environment in the same way we do a physical one. You know all this folder redirection stuff, drive mapping. Works great for me if you're interested, helps with profile corruption problems and so on.
By the way on that point Scriptlogic has also a very nice doc http://www.scriptlogic.com/whitepapers/Virtualizing-the-Desktop-with-ScriptLogic-Desktop-Authority.pdf paper that discusses the problem in general, various
By the way on that point Scriptlogic has also a very nice doc paper that discusses the problem in general, various virtualization approaches available today and its vision of the solution to the problem. While it obviously contains some vendor specific information, the key point is that the paper is mostly about the hypervisor technology challenges and solutions and it doesn't go much deep into details of concrete vendor solution and worth reading.
So for today when players such as Microsoft and Scriptlogic understand technology market expectations and needs, when both companies are responsive to community and show their interest in virtualization by providing us with new features I expect others to understand the importance of virtualization thus paving the way for the further development of industry.
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