Citrix wants to define the next generation desktop

Increasingly Citrix is integrating the technology that it develop with that acquired over the past couple of years. The result is the ability to bring a "desktop experience" to those needing to access personal or organizational applications and data from just about any type of device including, thin clients, smart handheld devices, netbooks, laptops, and, dare I say it, even desktop devices. The applications, data or even complete virtual machines could actually be running on the local system (if it is up to the task), a local PC blade computing, a remote blade computer or even a large general purpose system that lives in the datacenter. It appears that the mavens at Citrix have been contemplating what this all could mean in the coming years and came up with five predictions. Let's review them.

Citrix's five predictions

1. Your Company Will No Longer Own Your Laptop
2. Your Company Will Spend More on Coffee and Office Supplies Than it Does on Desktop Management
3. You Will Access Your Corporate Desktop from Whatever Device is Most Convenient at the Time
4. You Will Switch Back and Forth Between Work and Personal Desktops on the Same Device, Without Thinking Twice
5. You Will Never Complain About Your PC Being Too Slow Again

Snapshot Analysis

Your Company Will No Longer Own Your Laptop

While Citrix has enjoyed some level of success in persuading staff members to acquire their own prefered hardware through a "Bring Your Own Computer" program, many organizations will prefer to own the equipment. It is, however, a workable idea for some organizations.

Your Company Will Spend More on Coffee and Office Supplies Than it Does on Desktop Management

It is not at all clear that the approach Citrix is suggesting will reduce te costs of desktop management to a level that is lower than the cost of office supplies or coffee. While I'm sure that Citrix can produce volumes of return on investment and/or cost of ownership studies to support their point (and these studies will be valid within the context of the initial assumptions, data collected and how it was analyzed), this may not be persuasive to some organizations.

After all, some organizations are looking at different meterics. Increasing revenue per person or reducing the time needed to respond to customer requirements may be more valuable to some. Citrix can clearly target management cost reductions with their technology. Citrix solutions must be purchased and deployed (clearly cost items) before any of this vision can be realized.

Those having a short-term view would not see such dramatic savings until the initial costs have been recovered and so, would not embark on this path.

You Will Access Your Corporate Desktop from Whatever Device is Most Convenient at the Time

Citrix, among several suppliers, can make it possible for applications and data to be accessed from handhelds, thin clients, laptops or desktop systems. Furthermore, the applications and data can reside on the local system, be streamed down to it for local processing, be encapsulated as virtual machines to run locally or run somewhere in the organization's "cloud."

Citrix is one of a small number of suppliers that offers access virtualization, application virtualization, processing virtualization, security and management that can make this vision a reality.

You Will Switch Back and Forth Between Work and Personal Desktops on the Same Device, Without Thinking Twice

Whether a staff member will be allowed to access personal applications and data on company time really depends upon the corporate culture. While technically this is possible, not all organizations would allow it.

You Will Never Complain About Your PC Being Too Slow Again

I don't know a person who doesn't complain about his/her personal computing environment. No matter how fast something seems in the beginning, it doesn't seem that fast six months down the line

It is clear, on the other hand, that encapsulated applications offer better performance in some cases. In those cases, people might wait eight months before beginning the complaint cycle.

How did Citrix do?

I do applaud the folks in Citrix engineering and marketing organizations for putting together this vision. The fact is that it could be true if organizations want it to be true.