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Recently we've seen a report circulating that our friends at VMware sent out. It's a report that they contracted the Tolly Group to write. The document attempts to provide a comparison of VMware View 3 with Citrix XenDestkop 2.1. Ironically, this document is being released just after we've launched XenDesktop 3, making the report immediately obsolete.
There's a prominent sidebar that in the report that states that Citrix declined to participate in the testing - this is true, and I was the one that actually made that call and discussed it with Tolly Group. To their credit, Tolly Group did call us prior to beginning the testing and informed us of the project and shared the statement of work prepared for VMware. We asked some questions and provided some feedback about the testing methodology. I had serious concerns that the proposed tests did not reflect true customer use cases. For example, the user experience testing was only for a few productivity applications in a LAN environment - that was all that was planned, and it didn't seem to realistic based on what we've seen in real customer environments. Tolly took note of our concerns and asked VMware as the sponsor of the paper whether they would alter their approach. Later we learned that VMware (not surprisingly) had rejected our suggestions and was not open to changing the proposed tests. At that point, it was clear that it made no sense to participate because:
a) The test would not be based on our current product at the time of publication
b) The proposed testing environment did not reflect real world customer requirements
c) Critical elements of a virtual desktop solution were not going to be included in the test, things like application management, service level assurance, diversity in client endpoints, WANs, etc.
We've been having great success with XenDesktop, and we're winning consistently in competitive situations. And we've been winning based on precisely the types of scenarios and solution capabilities that were excluded from this testing.
Despite these fundamental issues with the report, people will still ask questions about the claims within it. So here's some brief responses to the 5 highlighted claims in the report.
Claim 1 - Complex Installation - This claim would hold some merit if the two products were comparable in terms of overall functionality. A spreadsheet is easier to install than an enterprise CRM or ERP solution - but that doesn't make it better suited for the job at hand.
Claim 2 - Simple Image Management - VMware claims that XenDesktop requires dedicated images in order to support persistent desktops, and that it needs third-party products to manage the user's personal environment. Both these points are invalid with XenDesktop 3. The report doesn't mention that VMware recommends or requires third party add-ons to achieve similar functionality that is built-in to XenDesktop.
Claim 3 - Manual Configuration of Active Directory & DHCP - Again this is not a valid claim for XenDesktop 3. Manual configuration of Active Directory is not required.
Claim 4 - Management of ALL VDI functions through a single, Web-based GUI - Xbox 360 game controllers have a lot of buttons. The Atari 2600 controller had one button.
Claim 5 - Equivalent end-user experience on LAN as Citrix for Microsoft Office applications - How about when the users start to use other apps, move to other networks, and access desktops from other client devices? Check out www.citrix.com/xendesktop3 and www.citrix.com/hdx for information on our approach to user experience experience - be sure to check out the videos.
We fully understand that The Tolly Group's role is to validate the results of a testing methodology designed by the sponsor. We've commissioned several similar reports ourselves, and made every effort to make them as valuable to customers as possible.
To wrap this up: We didn't participate in this study because we knew it would be outdated at the time of publication. We also felt that the testing environment did not provide an accurate representation of customer requirements. Finally we didn't participate as the scope of the project only evaluated a subset of the functionality needed for a complete solution.
Comments (8)
Feb 16, 2009
Anonymous says:
Fair enough, so why don't you recommision the test (with Tolly) using XenDesktop...Fair enough, so why don't you recommision the test (with Tolly) using XenDesktop 3 and both your and VMWares preffered environments and prove the point?
XenPro
Feb 16, 2009
Anonymous says:
So VMware decline?So VMware decline?
Anonymous replies:
Feb 17, 2009
Anonymous says:
This is one of the complaint i always have about Citrix Marketing. X...This is one of the complaint i always have about Citrix Marketing. XD is by far a superior product, there are several customers who have move to XD from VDI,but yet all the you can find about the customer is videos and whitepapers saying how great VmWare is.
doesnt take much to a technical oriented person to view how much better XD could be, however, the VmWare folks dont target us, they target the Executive Manager that only digest numbers and Youtube Videos.
come guys lets spend some bucks in updating all this videos all over the Web. for example why there isnt any video about the Collier county FL migration to XD? few weeks ago i had a VMWare reseller telling our CEO how Happy Coolier county was with VDI and how they arent using Citrix At all.
Feb 17, 2009
Calvin Hsu says:
I appreciate your frustration - and customer testimonials are at the top of the ...I appreciate your frustration - and customer testimonials are at the top of the list for everyone on my team. That said, Citrix overall does hold a high standard for getting the appropriate customer approvals and legal agreements with our customers' legal departments. On the one hand, this means that our testimonials are very trustworthy, on the other, it means it takes a long time to get the signatures!
Interesting about the Collier example you mention. We've had a very active partnership with them ever since their CIO walked on stage last Synergy to give us our first PO! I don't know what level of approvals our competitors go through, but this does raise the question in my mind.
I share your frustration and we're doing what we can, while honoring and respecting our customers' right to control how their names get used. It makes it hard to get the next testimonial if you abuse that relationship and we are admittedly conservative in this regard.
Feb 17, 2009
Anonymous says:
XenPro - Certainly under consideration - however, VMW have a little clause in th...XenPro - Certainly under consideration - however, VMW have a little clause in their license that can make this challenging...
- Calvin
Feb 17, 2009
Rene Vester says:
As i also wrote on my blog, comparing guns to Bow&arrow is never really a go...As i also wrote on my blog, comparing guns to Bow&arrow is never really a good thing. But i do think it is good when we see comparisons of the products available in the market. I just hope we will see more Well-balanced comparisons instead of a VMware sponsored report today, a Citrix sponsored report tormorrow
Rene Vester
Feb 19, 2009
Simon Bramfitt says:
Have to agree with you there Rene. I can accept marketing messages like: Our p...Have to agree with you there Rene.
I can accept marketing messages like:
Our product is easier to use than XXX,
Our product costs less than XXX,
Our product does more than XXX,
But paying an 'independent' 3rd party to follow a tightly scripted evaluation scenario where everyone knows in advance what the outcome will be and expecting us to believe it, is insulting.
Jul 07
Anonymous says:
We've all seen this problem throughout the industry in that really the only "3rd...We've all seen this problem throughout the industry in that really the only "3rd party" tests are those commissioned by the company, theres no JD Power in the IT industry, mainly because comparing everything that is out there in a specific area would probably take a million dollars just to get their hands on them, and for what? a report that is worth maybe half of that to the winning customer. we have seen tolly take baby steps recently, you go on their site and there are links to all these test methodologies created by them to test a wide margin of user scenarios, but getting the industry to take them to heart is probably not going to be an easy task.
At least we have XD to make our lives easier
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