Since our company’s inception, we have been singularly focused on making PCs more reliable, more manageable, and more secure through the application of client-side virtualization technology. As IT folks try NxTop, they tend to have the “ah-ha moment” pretty quickly about how deploying and managing virtual desktops on a one-to-many basis will reduce their PC managements costs and improve their security. However, in the current economic climate buying decisions need to be made based on fact and not gut feel. As a result, we have spent a significant amount of time analyzing the key contributors to PC total cost of ownership (TCO) and exploring how the NxTop model stacks up against both traditional PC life cycle management tools and newer approaches like server-hosted virtual desktop infrastructure (VDI).

We look forward to opening up a more extensive public dialogue about our TCO findings in the coming weeks. As a first step, we are co-hosting a free webinar with IDC next week that will explore the TCO dynamics of desktop management in both traditional and virtualized PC environments. IDC analyst Michael Rose will review today’s desktop computing models and the TCO implications of each, and I’ll provide a brief demonstration of NxTop with a focus on the aspects of the product that have the biggest impact on TCO. I’ll also preview some of the early findings of our NxTop TCO analysis efforts.

The webinar will be held Tuesday, June 23, from 11:00 AM – 12:00 PM EDT. You can register to attend at:
https://www2.gotomeeting.com/register/284181498

I hope to see you on the webinar!

Update: We recorded this webinar and it can be viewed here: Realizing the TCO of PC Lifecycle Management through Client-Side Virtualization (registration required).

If you haven’t already, I encourage you to check out the report (PDF) that IDC’s Michael Rose did on Virtual Computer’s Series B funding and strategic relationship with Citrix Systems.  Michael is one of a small number of analysts who have been predicting the emergence of client hypervisor technology for quite some time, so when Alex and I showed up at the IDC offices last summer (complete with laser-printed stealth mode business cards in hand), I recall Michael saying something along the lines of, “It’s about time somebody actually did this.”  He didn’t just take our word for it though.  He quizzed us on the finer details of our product for a good two hours during that initial meeting and later followed it up with a visit to our office to see the NxTop in action for himself.

Here’s an excerpt of what Michael had to say in his recent brief:

Although Virtual Computer’s product strategy is based upon the use of a client-oriented version of the Xen hypervisor, it considers itself a desktop management vendor, not a virtualization company. Although this difference may seem like semantics, IDC believes it represents a main point of differentiation between the server and desktop virtualization market. IDC believes that compared to server virtualization, desktop virtualization will be far less disruptive, and that hypervisors will permeate desktop hardware far more quickly and extensively than servers, only a minority of which are virtualized according to our most recent data.

There is also a bit about the potential for a “XenSource-esque” acquisition in the future that gave us all chuckle.  We haven’t had nearly enough fun yet to start looking for the exit, but surely we are worth at least triple that price.  Server virtualization is the easy stuff!  

Download the full IDC report (PDF).