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Predictions for 2012 on Desktop Computing in the Enterprise in Face of Consumerization: PC-Plus, not Post-PC
Contributed
Article by Dr. Issy Ben-Shaul, CTO and co-founder of Wanova
There has been a lot of speculation about the future of PCs, or the
lack thereof as highlighted by those positioning a "post-PC" era. As much as some
popular vendors would like to see the landscape positioned to favor their lines
of business, the reality of the matter is that we are entering a PC-plus era
(as termed by Bob O'Donnell from IDC) where Windows and non-Windows devices are
co-existing within the business landscape. This is being led by a number of
driving forces:
1. There
are hundreds of millions of business PCs today. Furthermore, these PCs are
continuously migrating from XP to Windows 7 following a massive investment by
enterprise IT. This transition to a robust and advanced OS means that IT
administrators are continuously feeling empowered with the necessary tools to
securely and properly manage their desktop environments.
2. There
are thousands of Windows-based applications currently being deployed throughout
the enterprise. The vast majority of these applications represents the "long
tail" and would still need to be supported over the foreseeable future. While some
of applications have been ported to run on other devices, it is a numbers game
that highlights how many enterprises need to embrace a balance between PCs and
alternative devices.
IDV,
not VDI -- To address PC-Plus Needs
In the PC-plus era, Windows apps need to be made readily available to
end users regardless of the OS or type of the access device. One approach that
has been advocated by VDI vendors to address this need while eliminating the
need for physical Windows devices is as follows:
- Surrender your PC.
- Rely on a "PC-like" solution in the data
center. This could be either a fully-personalized PC image loaded on a VM,
or a "workspace" consisting of a set of applications accessible through a
terminal services-like solution along with personal data and settings.
- Allow your device to access the
virtualized workspace (apps, files and profile) through a remote desktop
protocol. Alternatively, use technologies that can render the UI of a
remotely executing application using HTML5, and hence accessible from any
HTML5-compatible browser.
This approach sounds compelling in that it offers a uniform and
centralized way to access the Windows legacy while eliminating endpoint PCs
from the picture. However, there are some major drawbacks to this approach:
- When a user needs to do generational work
(as opposed to read-only/access work), he/she wants to have the native
user-experience that allows for the user to work locally irrespective of
whether they are now connected online via Wi-Fi from Starbucks, from home,
or not even online. With RDP as the only way to reach your desktop for
real work, this is a limiting factor.
- Furthermore, the user also wants to
utilize their native powerful device/laptop resources instead of having to
rely on shared and remote resources at the data center.
- On a touch-centric device, running Windows
applications remotely to do serious, day-to-day work is not realistic.
These apps were not designed to work with a touch-centric interface, and
simple things like the functionality of a mouse right-click are sometimes
challenging. It is acceptable to use these devices for occasional access
for read-only tasks, but not for actual, day-to-day operation.
Hence, my prediction is that
enterprises will look for a different approach to serve best the PC-Plus era.
Dubbed by Intel as Intelligent Desktop Virtualization (IDV), this model offers
a
Dual-mode that combines central
and local execution modes. When
applied to PC-Plus, Enterprises will allow users to access their Windows
applications for "mostly read access" from non-Windows devices using a hosted
virtualized environment, while at the same time allowing users to do "write-access"
using their native laptops. This approach requires a combination of local and
centralized copies of the workspace to be synchronized. While this will not
happen overnight, and requires a proper solution, it is the ultimate way to
address the PC-Plus Era.
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About the Author
Dr.
Issy Ben-Shaul is the CTO and Co-Founder of Wanova, leading all aspects of the
technical and product vision for the company. Prior to co-founding Wanova, Issy
was the CTO of the Application Delivery Business Unit at Cisco and led the
technology and vision for the successful Wide Area Application Services (WAAS)
product. Issy joined Cisco via the acquisition of Actona Technologies, where he
was Co-Founder, CTO and Vice President of Engineering.