VDI is not stupid. Recently, Eric S. Perkins on his blog proclaimed that VDI is Stupid. Well, actually, the way our competitors have been treating VDI is problematic; which might have led to Eric's assertion that VDI is stupid. So, I want to take this opportunity to go over some of his concerns.

One important point on VDI - VDI is not merely another server workload and must not be treated as such. This is perhaps why many of our competitors' VDI implementations have failed and have also created significant costs for their customers. Furthermore, VDI is not for every user in the enterprise - it is best suited for certain environments.

Desktop virtualization, on the other hand, is a more comprehensive solution that encompasses VDI. By separating the three core components of the desktop - OS, apps, and user profile - into three different layers, desktops are managed centrally and dynamically assembled for users regardless of the location and device the users are logging in from. The separation of the three core layers provide tremendous flexibility for IT to manage users desktops.

Citrix has been in the desktop virtualization space for a long time (admittedly we never talked about it as desktop virtualization) and have various forms of it available to our customers. Beyond VDI, Citrix FlexCast allows IT to delivery desktops to all users desktops in different scenarios:

• For task workers sharing a similar set of applications, the most secure, cost-effective approach is Hosted Shared Desktops.
• For office workers who need more personalized desktops, Hosted VM-based VDI Desktops is often the best approach. By running each user's desktop in a dedicated virtual machine, this option combines the benefits of central management with full user personalization.
• For technical workers and power users who run professional graphics applications such as CAD/CAM, GIS; Hosted Blade PC Desktops ensures dedicated processing power for each user.
• Local Streamed Desktops leverage the local processing power of rich clients, while centralizing single-image management of the desktop. This is a quick and cost-effective way for anyone to get started with desktop virtualization by leveraging existing PC resources while keeping datacenter overhead to a minimum.
• Virtual Apps to Installed Desktops offer many of the ROI and management benefits of a fully virtualized desktop with minimal setup costs. Although virtual apps run on the local device, they managed centrally.

Regardless of what type of virtual desktop you pick for your users, user experience is the most important aspect of desktop virtualization. Based on Citrix's 20 years experience working with the end users, we are very sensitive to how users interact with their work environment. So when we created XenDesktop, a huge focus is placed on making the user experience much better than a local PC - with our HDX technology.

With regards to VDI being just another propaganda or niche solution. Gartner estimates by 2013, the desktop virtualization market will be at $65billion. And we are seeing this explosive growth at Citrix. There are real business issues our customers are addressing with desktop virtualization. You can see all these real world testimonials on our website.

One key component in the Citrix VDI solution is the inclusion of communication. This is a clear distinction from other VDI solutions in the market because no one else has even considered adding communication as part of their VDI solution. When Citrix develops XenDesktop, we made a very concerted effort to design a VDI platform that is capable of supporting the next evolution of desktops or operating systems.

There are numerous market drivers that propel Citrix to make EasyCall part of XenDesktop. In enterprises today, the line between the IT and the telecom organizations have been blurred. In many cases, there's no longer a separate organization that handles only telecom. A lot of telecom organizations have been folded into the IT organizations. Applications from Microsoft, Adobe, IBM, Oracle, and more are key culprits in that transition as they increasingly make communication as a core part of their applications. As much as some IT tries to separate communication and application, it's no longer realistic to do so. Enterprise users have already been making voice calls from their PCs, IT can no longer ignore this new reality.

Citrix is fully aware of this communication trend and we are addressing this heads on for our customers so that our customers are well prepared to handle this. With Citrix XenDesktop having communication as part of its core competency, organizations would not have to scramble later to find telephony vendors to add communication.  And telephony vendors are the last place to look for a VDI communication solution as these folks have even yet to understand how applications work in the users' world today.

XenDesktop is not like the VDI solution as some of our competitor like to put it. It is actually at least one generation ahead of where they would like to be.

If you have been following the communication industry, you have no doubt been barraged by all these talks about Unified Communications. But all these years of hype, Unified Communications remains just a fragment of imagination. Why?

Let me share with you just one big reason why, it is not UNIFIED!

Unified Communications is actually a misnomer. What the telephony vendors are doing is to tie you into their own suite of products that they hastily bundle together, then slapping on the Unifeid Communications name. It is not unified because telephony system from one vendor does not work well with the system from another vendor.  Furthermore, there are great limitations on how the telephony companies implemented Unified Communications.

Let's look at the click-to-call technology. Most telephony companies will claim that they support this as part of Unified Communications. However, you will find that this one capability is only limited to one or two popular software applications. You will also discover that in order to extend click-to-call to other applications, you are expected to invest in internal development resources as well as external professional services from the telephony companies. It becomes too cost prohibifive when you need to include communication into more than two or three applications.

If you cannot put a simple click-to-call technology without making your customers break the bank, do you still have the right to call your solution Unified Communications? I think not.

Citrix comes out with a click-to-call solution, called EasyCall, that challenges the current mindset. We are challenging the status-quo on how the current crops of Unified Communications vendors conduct business. EasyCall is a disruptive technology that enables click-to-call on any applications using any phone devices! It is an agnostic solution that gives you the freedom to leverage your existing infrastructure and achieve real hard dollar savings.

I'm sure many people are wondering why Citrix creates a quirky communication solution called EasyCall. Why does communication have to do with Citrix's core business?

The answer is: SIMPLICITY!

We all know how convenient it is to make phone calls from your cell phone. All you need to do is look up someone's name and hit dial. However, why is it that you cannot do the same with your PC? Your PC is arguable your most comprehensive and most powerful phone book in your possession.

And today, you are seeing more and more software and web applications that have chat and voice capabilities built into them. Just in the last few years, instant messaging clients from Yahoo, Microsoft, AOL, etc have all embedded voice capability inside.  

 
You are also seeing an evolution led by Microsoft, Adobe, IBM, etc to add communication as just another feature within the applications. A good example is what you see below with Microsoft Outlook, you can simply click on the Smart Tag feature and call someone. Or from Adobe where its Acrobat includes a web collaboration feature. None of these communication capabilities are what you would traditionally associate with the software companies. Yet, these features are being introduced more and more by the software companies.

This is because for an average office worker, it is much easier to learn a simple new feature within the existing application than to learn an all new softphone interface that sits outside of that work environment. Softphone adds complexity to the user environment and has demonstrated a profound negative impact on its adoption rate. Softphone also introduces unnecessary challenges to the already stretched IT organization.

Since Citrix today can deliver thousands of business critical applications to the users, we simply add voice communication on top of those delivered applications. You can now call anyone from any applications without having to do any sort of integration work! This simple addition brings great values to the customers. This is why EasyCall is an integral part of the Citrix solution.

So check out EasyCall today here.