Citrix Unveils Virtual Desktop

Citrix Systems prepared for Tuesday's opening of its annual Citrix iForum application delivery conference, held this week in Las Vegas, with the introduction of its desktop virtualization strategy, the renaming of its server virtualization technology, and the introduction of new voice, compliance, and "green" features to its core NetScaler and Presentation Server applications.

The desktop and server virtualization moves come as a result of Citrix's mid-August move to acquire XenSource for $500 million. That acquisition closed Monday, said Wes Wasson, senior vice president and chief marketing officer of Citrix.

Citrix plans to combine existing Citrix and XenSource technology to launch XenDesktop, a desktop virtualization software, during the first half of 2008, Wasson said.

While there is already other desktop virtualization software in the market, such as the Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI) from VMware, XenDesktop is taking a different approach, Wasson said.

XenDesktop lets solution providers build virtual desktop PCs, but without the applications, Wasson said. Instead, the applications are kept as separate products in separate locations, and delivered to the virtual desktop PCs.

"VMware will tell you to give them your desktop with the applications, and they'll put it in a virtual machine," he said. "But we scratch our heads and say, that's just moving the existing problems from the desktop to the data center."

By separating the applications and their delivery from the virtual desktops, the result is fewer software conflicts and less chance of corrupting files, Wasson said. "We deliver the desktop so it can run in a virtual machine," he said. "It's best used for delivering applications like we do with Presentation Server and NetScaler."

Citrix on Monday also rebranded its XenSource line as Citrix XenServer, Wasson said. Nothing else has changed, including the price and Citrix's relationship with XenSource channel partners, he said.

There are about 350 XenSource VARs, all of whom are automatically certified for Citrix XenServer, Wasson said. In addition, about 70 percent of Citrix's 5,000 channel partners worldwide currently sell server virtualization software from rival VMware.

Wasson said he does not want his company's channel partners to change their VMware relationship. But he does want them to try XenServer. "We'll be offering a jump start program to get them selling XenServer quickly," he said. "If they sell VMware, they'll keep selling it. But many will also be impressed with XenServer."

Peter Anderson, president of Bayshore Technologies, a Tampa, Fla.-based Citrix solution provider, said he is very excited to see Citrix embrace server and desktop virtualization.

"We carry VMware, but we think the market is huge," Anderson said. "In the next couple of years, Dell, Hewlett-Packard, and IBM all will come out with virtualization."

Anderson said he sees a big potential market for virtual desktop PCs. "Virtualization's main advantage is management," he said. "This will take a lot of the stress out of desktop management. We'll be able to send out changes easier. And control is a huge issue. We like the idea of not touching the desktop."

Donnie Downs, president of Plan B Technologies, a Bowie, Md.-based Citrix solution provider, said there are a lot of customers buying into Citrix's application delivery message who will be glad to see it married to virtualization.

"Microsoft people will say, you can do this with [Microsoft] Terminal Server, and you don't need Citrix," Downs said. "Or at VMware, they'll say, yeah, you can do without Citrix. Now with XenServer, you can say, yeah, you can do it all with Citrix."

However, Downs said, bringing XenDesktop to market is not as easy as it sounds. "We need to see how it is presented," he said. "There has been a lot of confusion with things like portals and the ASP model. But customers really need virtual desktops for rapid application deployment and ease of management.

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