X
Tech

HP and Desktop Virtualization

In a seemingly endless list of competitors in what could be called "desktop virtualization," HP stands out as one of the few competitors that plays in desktop systems, portable systems, handheld systems, blade PCs, blade servers, traditional servers, software and professional services. So, when Tad Bodeman of HP wanted to discuss HP's "Remote Client Solutions" I was more than happy to make time on my calendar for the chat.
Written by Dan Kusnetzky, Contributor

In a seemingly endless list of competitors in what could be called "desktop virtualization," HP stands out as one of the few competitors that plays in desktop systems, portable systems, handheld systems, blade PCs, blade servers, traditional servers, software and professional services. So, when Tad Bodeman of HP wanted to discuss HP's "Remote Client Solutions" I was more than happy to make time on my calendar for the chat. Let's face it, HP's story is complex. That's because it is very comprehensive. Tad was able to bring the story down to real-life scenarios so even a over worked analyst could understand what the company was doing.

I'm not sure that I could do justice to everything HP is doing in this area in a short post here. Let me just summarize HP's story by saying the company is offering a broad portfolio of hardware, the software necessary to drive that hardware, a huge list of partners and a powerful service organization that few companies could hope to match.

About the only downsides to HP's story that I could mention revolve around the comprehensive approach to engineering that HP deploys. I know. Picky, picky, picky.

Quite often HP will start working on something and while they're architecting and then testing the heck out of their product, others quickly bring a competitive product to market. So, even though HP may have started first and may produce a better product, they appear to be first in industry followship rather than industry leadership. HP's proponents don't appear to mind. They'd rather wait for a well engineered product rather than jumping onto a technology that was not as well thought out or tested. Believe it or not, HP has been benchmarking quite a number of different approaches to providing remote access to applications and data not just designing products. They want to be totally confident that their products will perform well in a customer's environment.

HP also has a tendency to develop more than one solution to a problem (for architectural completeness I suspect) and customers need to take the time to understand all of them before making a selection. To steal a section of a television spot, Slapping one's head and saying, "I could have had a V-8" won't be of much use if an organization selects a combination of products from HP that won't quite hit the desired mark. I guess that's one of the reasons why HP has developed such a strong services organization.

If your organization is using one of HP's remote client solutions could you let us know what you're doing, why you selected HP's approach over that offered by others and what kind of benefit your organization has gotten due to that choice?

Editorial standards