As vendors and businesses ponder implementing virtualised solutions for servers and desktops, at least one expert has tipped desktop virtualisation as essential to retooling the standard model of computing found at businesses for the past couple decades.

"In my view, desktop virtualization isn't really about virtualization at all," said Dave Bartoletti of the consultancy firm Taneja Group. "It's about leveraging the consumer computing model we've created in the last 15 years to retool corporate computing."

Writing for Virtualisation Review, Bartoletti explained that the drivers for virtualisation have largely remained the same, though now more than ever it can benefit a business - and particularly the IT and support departments of a firm - to deploy virtualisation solutions.

"The cost of supporting all those new netbooks, smart phones and tablets is starting to overwhelm the IT managers we speak to, and many don't expect to finish their Win 7 migrations before Win 8 ships," Bartoletti wrote. "Hardware and OS refreshes alone are enough to prompt many to start DV projects."

It's the former that will keep driving the virtualisation market, the expert said, with more businesses incorporating employees' smart phones and tablet computers into their own networks, or allowing them to access networks remotely in order to work from home or on the road.

"For many apps and many user types the desktop should fade away: corporate data held securely in the cloud should be delivered restfully to stateless endpoints, running thin interfaces on a user's own hardware," Bartoletti said.

Written by Jason Morton
 

Desktop virtualisation helps ‘retool corporate computing’