Market for desktop virtualisation software is hotting up, says IDC

22 Nov 2011

Customers "intrigued" by the possibility of a better desktop management model and operational savings - and they face a growing range of options to achieve their goals.

In a new report, IT market research company IDC has evaluated the current capabilities and long-term strategies of 12 desktop virtualisation software vendors.

The analyst company expects the desktop virtualisation market to make significant gains in both revenues and total customer count well into the second half of the decade. As solutions mature, they will become increasingly applicable to more organisations and a greater range of vertical industries, it predicts.

“Customers are intrigued by the possibility of a better desktop management model and the operational savings desktop virtualisation could deliver," said Ian Song, a senior research analyst in enterprise virtualisation software at IDC. “Many vendors have emerged to provide solutions and desktop virtualisation products are now available from small start-ups to Fortune 100 companies. In turn, customers are concerned about the capability and viability of each vendor's solution.”

The report, IDC MarketScape: Worldwide Desktop Virtualisation 2011 Vendor Analysis, evaluates vendors in the desktop virtualisation space by analysing their current capabilities as well as their longer-term strategies that IDC believes will impact their ability to provide solutions and gain market share going forward. It uses a scoring and ranking model based on both qualitative and quantitative criteria, which results in a graphical illustration of each vendor’s position in the competitive landscape.

Among the vendors evaluated in the report, IDC placed just one – Citrix – in the 'Leaders' category. Citrix was recognised for its comprehensive set of technologies and a firm strategic grip on where it wants to take its product line-up.

The firm placed seven vendors in its 'Major Players' category – Desktone, Kaviza, Microsoft, MokaFive, Quest Software, Virtual Bridges, and VMware. The vendors that were placed in the 'Contenders' category, meanwhile, were Red Hat, Unidesk, Virtual Computer, and Wanova.

"As desktop virtualisation gains more mainstream attention, the solutions offered by these vendors will continue to mature at a quickened pace,” said Song. Over the next two years, he predicts, desktop virtualisation technologies will move beyond just managing PCs, to become “a solution that can provide a holistic management paradigm addressing many different facets of end-user computing”.

"It is very likely that larger vendors will introduce unified management platforms in the near future to bridge the management between desktops, mobile devices and cloud services. Smaller vendors will also move up-market and take advantage of unified management, but due to the size and resource limitations, they will remain serving small and medium sized businesses (SMBs), or larger customers on a per-use-case basis,” he added.