Cima has been seeing a lot of interest in Desktop Virtualization (we’ll try to clarify terms in a minute) and, as an organization, we’ve taken a strong interest in helping evaluate this toolset for our clients.

As with everything that we do, we look to ground our recommendations and analysis in sound business value.  Desktop Virtualization is interesting because:

1. Like a fast food value menu, “Everyone” seems to be looking at it, and everyone has an offering
2. It means different things to different people, (so, it’s confusing) and
3. From our analysis, the business value is not often as compelling as ‘everyone’ wants it to be.

So, let’s start with who’s looking at it.  We conducted a survey of mid-market clients several months ago, asking them about initiatives that mattered to them now.  Almost one-third (31%) of the respondents indicated that Desktop Virtualization was important to them…the most important thing, in fact.   Interestingly, however, twice that amount (70%) indicated that the more mundane task of improving ‘back ups’ was most important to them now.  That seems to fit with the typical IT management priority associated with having to take care of existing stuff while wanting to be able to get to new stuff.

We’ve also seen that desktop virtualization means different things to different people (and, different things within a single organization).  I think it means separating (abstracting) the (physical) computing resource from the user.  I don’t know about whether or not you need a desktop, re-use your old desktop, have a thin client, move to an i-pad or connect through a toaster.  We can argue about what it means, but where ever you land on what it means, there are solutions that fit your model as well as mine.

What I’m beginning to think is the promise of “desktop virtualization” lies in making the applications themselves virtual  – the application virtualization part of desktop virtualization and not the VDI part (PC, thin client, i-pad, toaster)  seems, at least to me, to be more liberating, more valuable, and more enabling.

Cima makes it a point to find and deliver business value in the reliable solutions we recommend and deploy.  So far, and maybe tied to that research I mentioned above, we’re finding that in most cases clients get more value (business, financial value) in the mundane task of improving their operations  -stuff like making ‘back ups’ more efficient,  driving density into their virtualized server environment, or even looking at how to virtualize storage.

I’m not saying that desktop virtualization doesn’t make sense.  I’m saying it needs to make business sense for you to go do it – and that’s the question our clients are asking; “Does VDI make sense for me”?