08 Jan 2009

Managed desktop technology 'more popular'

More desktop offerings are being provided by hosted IT vendors vendors, an expert has suggested.

Gordon Haff, writing at CNET News, said more system vendors expanded and updated their IT offerings in desktop technology.

Noting Microsoft's roll-out of its new application virtualisation offering, Hyper-V, Mr Haff commented that soon more applications, data and other services will be moved off local devices and into corporate data centres or the cloud.

Mr Haff agreed with comments recently made by IT industry analyst Brian Madden, who said desktop virtualisation is not yet mainstream but that in 2008, large firms such as Microsoft were "getting serious about it".

"I started seeing a swelling interest in alternative ways of delivering applications and software services to a variety of clients in 2007. But I agree with Madden that the trend accelerated in 2008," Mr Haff said.

Jeff Vance, writing in an article at Datamation this week, predicted that the bad economy will lead to increased take-up of virtualisation because of its potential cost savings.