By Simon Quicke2 September 2008
The move towards desktop virtualisation is going to be
driven not just by the cost savings its produces but by the compelling green
argument that using lower powered devices creates.
That assessment was made by Frank Coggrave, vice president
and general manager for EMEA at NComputing, which specialises in low cost
virtualisation devices that offer 10 connections from a PC and 30 from a
low-end server.
He believes that the shift towards desktop virtualisation is
happening from the grass-roots up with SMEs among the first wave to grasp the
benefits of sharing computing resources.
“These products pay for themselves in 12 to 16 months in
energy savings alone,” he said.
He added that for key verticals including education, health
and retail there was a real attraction with products that not only cost lower
than a traditional desktop but because they had no hard drive had a reduced
security risk.
He added that NComputing was still in the process of
building a channel and was looking for resellers that had a background in the
thin client market.
Other players in the virtualisation market, including VMWare
and Parallels, have also identified the desktop as the next stage of
development following their activity at a server level.
