Comments on: Killer Cloud App: Virtual Desktops

By: Steve Duplessie

Steve Duplessie — Mon, 21 Dec 2009 14:23:19 +0000

That depends on what you mean by virtual desktop usage. There have long been app’s capable of supporting “time share” services, but you probably mean more along the lines of what “images” are served? If you can be more specific perhaps I can help. Cheers.

By: Business

Business — Sun, 20 Dec 2009 10:11:37 +0000

Is there billing integration such that I only get billed for the actual virtual desktop usage?

By: Doug Rainbolt

Doug Rainbolt — Wed, 28 Oct 2009 01:37:34 +0000

I find it interesting to observe the growing interesting desktop virtualization. I noticed that you didn’t include the words thin client, but once or twice, in your posting, and probably for good reason. We have come along way since the day of the thin client X Terminal. At Tektronix we sold thousands of X Terminals. Back then it too was very much about the cost of ownership argument, comparing the administrative cost of a personal computer to that of a thin client. Many of these devices were sold to banks and used as teller stations. They were also used by customer server representatives or in information kiosks. But in general, the end user experience wasn’t rich. In fact, the applications were narrowly scoped and there were very few power users. I remember being forced to eat our own dog food, that is, to use X Terminals internally to demonstrate to ourselves and to the world that it was possible and perhaps, downright enjoyable to use X Terminals for office applications. We scrambled to find office tools. We found a few and they were very primitive. It was kind of like going from a steak diet to eating cardboard and smiling while you do it. We later introduced a package called WinDD, or Windows Distributed Desktop, that made use of Citrix’ ICA protocol to deliver native Windows Applications to the desktop. A huge step in the right direction but the latencies for many applications left us wanting and waiting. Over time, as PCs became less expensive, as remote management tools became more prevalent, and other devices became available that weren’t exactly thin but weren’t fat either, the market for X terminals showed wear.

Desktop Virtualization while realizing some of the same benefits enjoyed by X Terminals should be so much richer. Sure you get the advantages of central or even better, third party provider administration. The related savings are very important, especially when things are tight. However, the user experience has dramatically improved. Baseline processors, memory, networking bandwidth, disk speeds have all evolved and improved (granted applications are more demanding too). The user experience has been enhanced to support video and audio. The desktop, or display device can be thin or it can be thick, depending upon the application and the device I’m using. X Terminals assumed that I didn’t go anywhere, I stayed put. For that matter, so do most desktop PCs. In this new world, my user experience should follow me, the mobile me. I no longer need a dedicated desktop. I don’t even need a dedicated office. In fact, my user experience should adjust to the device I’m presently tagged to. It might be a laptop, it might be a dedicated thin client device in a shared office environment, and it might possibly even be my PDA down the road. And for each of these environments, there is intelligence that dictates how much processing is done at my fingertips, how much is done in my data center, and how much is done in the cloud. As a user, I don’t even need to know where the processing is being done. While it’s great that IT and the business can realize some significant savings, what’s in for users isn’t too shabby either.

By: Mark

Mark — Wed, 21 Oct 2009 23:06:49 +0000

I think you are doing your customers and the industry a disservice by using the cloud label so broadly. This what vendors do when they want to sell their current product lines as “clouds”.

You have the opportunity to clarify things here by being a little more myopic and focused on what value cloud has that they haven’t been able to achieve with traditional hosting.

It’s a new model for delivering IT services, so calling these old models clouds is misguided and misleading. Just my opinion, not Larry’s…

By: Mark

Mark — Wed, 21 Oct 2009 17:55:46 +0000

What makes desktop virtualization into a “Cloud”? You missed this point in your post (and the research?). Not all hosting == cloud!

What is the elastic demand for virtual desktops?
i.e. is there a global distribution of users in different timezones?

Can a virtual desktop be provisioned “on demand”?

Is there billing integration such that I only get billed for the actual virtual desktop usage?

If not, this is not a “cloud” it’s just the hosting capability which is already available. I am surprised that ESG is one of many folks abusing the cloud term without a clear understanding of the difference.

– mark

——Markster, my Sun/Oracle/Who knows friend, hosting is a cloud service. There are LOTS of cloud services. Your myopic definition should not preclude others. Last Iooked Sun wasn’t in charge of symantec’s for, well, anything anymore. The point is that yes – HOSTING – virtual desktops is a nice cloudy application – nothing more, nothing less. Stop yelling at me, yell at Larry. – Steve