Client Hypervisors: Intelligent Desktop Virtualization too clever for its own good?

In 2011, we asked if Client Hypervisors will drive will the Next Generation Desktop. Yet, other desktop virtualization industry experts, such as Ron Oglesby, decided the technology was a dead man walking, writing off Type 1 Client Hypervisors.

Waratek – forget VMware, just virtualize the JVM

Waratek is a one-off company with a disruptive technology (remember VMware was like this once) that forces you to reset your undertanding of how things could work. Waratek’s big idea is that you virtualize as high up the stack as you can because that gives you the best benefit in terms of sharing infrastructure.

Ulteo – Open Source Desktop Broker

Ulteo has just released Version 2 of its Open Virtual Desktop (OVD), an Open Source desktop broker product which is designed to deliver GUI applications running on Linux, Terminal Services and Windows to java-enabled browsers. Ulteo’s appeal is likely to be to more cost-conscious and linux-oriented organizations than the large enterprise customers of Citrix, VMware, Ericom, Systancia or Quest, but within these potentially new markets it can deliver many of the mangeability benefits of the existing proprietary products, and it has few competitors for its key feature of delivering both Linux and Terminal Services desktop applications through the same portal.

Cloudy Karmic Koala (Ubuntu 9.10)

There’s been a lot of press around the FREE Ubuntu 9.10 Linux distribution as a client operating system, and a wide set of comparisons made (typically by Mac or PC-using journalists) between Ubuntu and Windows 7, but 9.10 is also interesting from a broader virtualization and especially Cloud perspective. Ubuntu is managed by a UK company, Canonical, through a bona-fide foundation. Ubuntu will always be free, and is aligned with the Debian community.