Greetings from Chicago, where I am attending Brian Madden’s seventh annual BriForum event.  The event got off to a great start yesterday.  It is a smaller event as conferences go, but you won’t find a larger concentration of the brightest minds in desktop virtualization anywhere.  BriForum provides a great opportunity to see and touch some of the best virtualization technology available today, but I have been particularly drawn to some of the sessions focused on where this is all headed.  Chetan Venkatesh from Atlantis Computing did a really interesting session yesterday morning called “Envisioning the Desktop of 2015: A Tale of Three Clouds and Liquid Desktop Computing,” and Brian Madden and Martin Ingram of AppSense revisited their past predictions for the evolution of desktop computing in “Looking Towards the New Desktop.”  In both cases, the brand of client-side desktop virtualization we practice at Virtual Computer factored heavily into the presenters’ view of the future.

Walking around BriForum, one really gets the sense that there is a perfect storm of industry events brewing that is really going to cause desktop virtualization to take off in the next 12 months.  For example, all signs are that Microsoft “got it right” with Windows 7, and that its release will be a catalyst for many organizations to look for new and innovative ways to deploy and manage their desktops.  We think we have one for them.  If you happen to be a BriForum and would like to connect to see a live demo of NxTop, feel free to grab me by the shirt, ping me on Twitter (@dlane), or use the form we have available on our web site.

Fortunately for me, my time spent contemplating the future of desktop virtualization with really sharp people will not end with my departure from BriForum on Thursday.  I am excited to be teaming up with Rachel Chalmers of The 451 Group next week on the webinar, “Five Ways Virtualization Is Changing Your PC.”  It will be held next Wednesday (July 29) at  11:30 a.m. ET.  We will explore a number of the ways in which client-side desktop virtualization will transform the PC for both IT admins and end-users, including:

• The ability to run multiple operating systems on a single device and easily move from a personal to a corporate environment
• Easy migration from Windows XP to Windows Vista or soon Windows 7
• Enhanced data protection, backup and security
• Improved PC management for mobile and remote workers
• Remote desktop access to your documents, settings and self-installed applications

Visit our registration page to learn more or to register.

As loyal readers of Brian Madden’s blog, we have really enjoyed the new Brian Madden TV series that he and cohort Gabe Knuth started up back in February. It is clear that the acquisition of The Brian Madden Company by TechTarget hasn’t diluted the depth and independence that longtime readers appreciate and has in fact freed up more of Brian and Gabe’s time to focus on new types of independent content like Brian Madden TV.

We were quite excited that while Brian was in the Boston area for one of the TechTarget desktop virtualization roadshow events, he took time to visit our office to do a deeper dive on NxTop and shoot some footage for Brian Madden TV. The highlights appeared on this week’s episode of Brian Madden TV.

There is a lot of talk these days when it comes to NxTop, and Brian shot a ton of additional footage while he was here. So, keep an eye on his site for the extended version in the coming weeks for extra NxTop demo goodness.