The desktop virtualization marketplace is going to be fought by Microsoft, Citrix, and VMWare. There are tons of startups in the space, so maybe one of them will break out, but here’s how I envision it’s going to shake out;
VMWare is going to have the best technology. They will be the expensive, high quality player and will be embraced by organizations that have standardized on its infrastructure for server virtualization. Now that they’ve got a new CEO from Microsoft, they will probably learn how to put sneaky, proprietary hooks into their server code so that their desktop software performs best when you standardize on a 100% VMWare solution.
Citrix, whose battle this is to loose although i don’t think they see it this way, will be the price competitor. Same features as vmware and microsoft, but cheaper. To a certain extent, I think that their position in this market place is going to be the same as Linux is to Windows today – a (big) niche player that will have its afficionados, fine technology, but an inability to really break out.
Microsoft, and its desktop virtualization suite, will win using the classic Microsoft method – distribution – the offering will be ubiquitous, come bundled into the operating system(s) and be the default choice – not unlike Internet Explorer is today. Microsoft already is using some application virtualization in Vista for non-compliant applications. I’ve said this before – distribution channel wins the war in the end.
I’ve been watching the startups that are out there, plus seeing what Symantec (SYMC), Parallels (aka SWSoft), Sun, Quest Software, are doing. My sense is that these players, plus the big three in this space above will set about acquiring some of these startups to assemble portfolios of offerings.
This should be a fun one to watch!
What do you think is going to happen? Post a comment.
Tags: Add new tag, citrix, desktop virtualization, Microsoft, virtualization, vmware
