James has worked in IT since 1995, spending nearly ten years as a server engineer and systems administrator before choosing to focus heavily on user and application virtualization in late 2004. He currently works for a boutique consultancy called HTG in the north-east of England, focusing mainly on EUC solutions and focusing on cloud, mobility and digital transformation. He is a current CTA (Citrix Technology Advocate) and AppSense Community Advisor (ACA)
At first glance, it looks like VMware’s recently announced Horizon 6 platform is an admission by VMware that applications, rather than desktops, do matter, and that Citrix has been on the right track all along. Certainly, XenApp has been a thorn in the side of many VMware View implementations through the years, allowing people to …
Continue reading “Winds of Change: What Does Horizon 6 Mean for Microsoft and Citrix?”
The much-heralded XPocalypse—the end of extended support for Windows XP—is practically upon us. After thirteen years of service—beyond Microsoft’s normal service window by a good three years—Windows XP patching will finally stop. How will this affect those of us whose virtualized desktop infrastructures may still be tied, for various reasons, to the old OS?
A couple of years ago, UIAs (user-installed applications) were all the rage. AppSense had a product called StrataApps (and you can do it in Application Manager also), RES has native functionality that allows this, Unidesk can do it (admittedly in a slightly different way with its layering technology), Citrix was pushing Personal vDisk with its …
This week saw the announcement of VMware’s DaaS offering—VMware Horizon DaaS—based around the acquisition of Desktone in October 2013. This arrival in the marketplace is significant for VMware in that it represents the first entry of a large technology incumbent into the DaaS marketplace.
We are constantly reminded that the PC market is contracting, crashing, fading out of existence. There are many possible reasons behind the hard statistics, ranging from global recession to the aberrational removal of the Start Menu in Windows 8. Some, however, argue that the prevalence of desktop virtualization projects is also a factor in this …
Continue reading “Does Desktop Virtualization Contribute to the Decline in PC Sales?”
Recently I spoke with Mike Chase of dinCloud regarding its desktop virtualization offering. I hadn’t actually come across dinCloud before, as it is a fairly youthful company. However, its VDI offering—which it refers to as HVD (hosted virtual desktop), making an important distinction, because the solution can be on-premises, off-premises, or hybrid—is effectively a separate, …
