Gartner Blog Network: Wanted: Client Development for Microsoft VDI

By Gunnar Berger

Why do we see Microsoft taking this “third party” stance?

I think the answer can be found in RDS. Any Citrix Admin knows that XenApp sits on top of RDS, so while the goal may be to deploy XenApp we first have to deploy and pay for RDS. This relationship makes it so there is no strong reason to innovate, that was Citrix’s job. This Citrix/Microsoft Partnership is one of best partnerships I’ve seen for Microsoft. The problem is SHVD isn’t as cut and dry as that. In SHVD, you can deploy a solution that doesn’t sit on a framework built by Microsoft. Sure you’ll still need Windows OS licenses wherever they are applicable, but the architecture of SHVD does not literally sit on top of a Microsoft framework. This means much of the SHVD innovation is happening outside of a Microsoft framework, they are left out of the loop of this entire market. This is why we see Microsoft building the VDI solution in Server 2012. If a survey I read by Imprivata turns out to be true (in that survey SHVD is on the rise while SBC is on the fall) then Microsoft needs to get into the SHVD game and it’s a different game than the RDS market because in this market they have to build the entire product from top to bottom. So how do they do this?