Channel Tech Center

Unless you’re been away somewhere for a very long time, you’re aware that VMware and Citrix are now locked in mortal combat over which company is going to control the future of desktop virtualization.

Arguably, Citrix is the incumbent because of its long history with terminal services. But VMware has been coming on strong in its attempt to leverage its leadership on virtual servers to unseat Citrix. To that end, VMware has partnered with Teradici to come up with a PC-over-Internet (PCoIP) protocol that it argues is much more robust than the existing Citrix ICA protocol. To its credit, Citrix has responded with a new HDX protocol in XenDesktop 4 that it claims can do everything that PCoIP can do within a much simpler framework that spans a multitude of types of desktop virtualization, including the traditional terminal services approach. VMware argues that with VMware View 4.0, they can also do everything that Citrix can do only better.

Only testing, time and the robustness of the network will really tell the difference, but it’s interesting to note that Citrix seems to be able to count on its sometime ally Microsoft in this fight. Over the years the relationship between Citrix and Microsoft has waxed and waned, but now that they have a common enemy in the form of VMware the two seem to be joined at the hip, at least on the desktop. Given half a chance, Citrix would just as soon overthrow Hyper-V Microsoft or VMware on the server in favor of its own Xen virtual machine software.

For solution providers all this vendor infighting is nothing short of perhaps the greatest opportunity on the desktop to come their way in years. Bigger than Windows 7 even. The reason for this is that desktop virtualization is a major paradigm shift that, while it can dramatically reduce the cost of PC ownership, requires new servers, storage and networking infrastructure to make work. This is why we see every major server company, including Dell, Hewlett-Packard, Cisco and IBM, sniffing around the opportunity.

It’s too hard to say who will ultimately win this fight just yet. Clearly, VMware has the momentum give its strength on the server. But Microsoft, which is still a little conflicted about the whole desktop virtualization concept, has yet to fully throw its full might into this fight. And once it does, the odds are good that combined with the weight of Citrix, we’re going to witness a battle for the hearts, minds and wallets of solution providers that will play out for years.