Brian Madden posted a rather intriguing/controversial article titled “Do you think VMware is catching up to Citrix in the desktop space? Balderdash! Citrix needs to catch up to VMware.” In this article, Brian points out 5 main capabilities necessary to have VDI nirvana:

1. A remote display protocol that supports all applications.
2. Offline / client-based capability.
3. Many to one disk image.
4. User environment / workspace management.
5. User installable applications.

According to Brian’s calculations on Citrix’s shipping products, Citrix meets 1 out of 5. According to Brian’s calculations on VMware’s shipping and announced products, VMware meets 2 or 3 out of 5.

So, this article spurred a little controversy from Citrix and VMware. Sumit Dhawan posted a rebuttal on the Citrix Community Blogs. Sumit systematically expounds upon 3 main points:

1. Shipping versus experimental technologies.
2. VDI or Desktop virtualization is not an end all be all.
3. Offline workers.

Mike DiPetrillo from VMware (or at least a user claiming to be Mike) jumps in on the comments section of Sumit’s blog rebuttal as well adding to some of Sumit’s points.

Sources:

Brian Madden - Do you think VMware is catching up to Citrix in the desktop space? Balderdash! Citrix needs to catch up to VMware.
Sumit Dhawan - VDI or Desktop Virtualization - One Size Fits All? NOT TRUE!!!

Do any of you have experiences with VDI? What are you thoughts?

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