Introduction
This guide is designed to help you evaluate desktop virtualization software vendors by
letting you compare their answers to common IT questions.
IT departments are increasingly turning to desktop virtualization to
help them achieve an important equilibrium: balancing their need
to exert more control over the client platform, so they can simplify
management and rein in costs, with their users’ desire for more
flexibility and greater choice in end points and applications. But
many IT professionals are daunted by the complexity of the desktop
virtualization ISV landscape. The possibilities are many, and so are
the software vendors. We created this guide to help you evaluate
different desktop virtualization solutions by enabling you to
compare vendor answers across a standard set of questions.
Based on Intel’s experience implementing desktop virtualization
in our own organization, we compiled a list of questions IT
professionals typically ask as they start researching vendor
solutions. We then posed these questions to six desktop
virtualization vendors: three long time players in the desktop
virtualization space Citrix, Microsoft, and VMware and three newer
companies Scense, Virtual Computer, and Wanova . This document
compiles their responses.
Desktop Virtualization
Resources from Intel
The Desktop Virtualization Vendor Round Table is
part of a series of documents produced by Intel to
help IT professionals plan and implement desktop
virtualization in their own organizations. This series
includes the following:
Desktop Virtualization Planning Guide. Four steps
to planning a desktop virtualization implementation,
based on the experience of Intel’s IT department.
Desktop Virtualization Earns Its Stripes:
Insights from Intel’s IT Benchmarking Survey on
Desktop Virtualization. Survey of IT professionals
that discusses the business and technology drivers
behind their desktop virtualization plans, how they
plan to measure return on investment ROI , and
which delivery models and software vendors they
are considering.