If you ask them, Citrix Systems, Inc. dominates the virtual desktop infrastructure (VDI) market because it understood the polar differences of server and desktop virtualization early on. The company reached a point where the virtualized desktop was equivalent to that of a standalone. However, there’s a dam in the VDI market, and that is cost. At 95 percent market share, the physical market completely trumps VDI’s meager five percent.

Even with Citrix’s 3D app workloads, at the end of the day, physical is just cheaper. In an interview for theCUBE at VMworld, Citrix CTO for Desktop and Apps Group Gunnar Berger, stated that the problem with the VDI market lies in having to make a play about Opex. Although VDI is going to be more expensive, the Opex will make more sense over time. Berger explained that early adopters of server virtualization did the same thing. He offered examples of how admins had to do stress testing and figure out if the exchange could be supported. As server virtualization progressed, the questions around cost-savings eventually halted. Now, the argument is reversed. You now have to state your case if you want physical.

Berger believes that desktop virtualization in the market is now sort of teetering on the Capex, but the damn of cost is still there. This issue of VDI being locked up in cost and complexity is something that Berger wants to destroy in his role at Citrix. “I really think that we have some more room that we can do to just knock that out of the park,” Berger added.

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