Sign in / up

back to article Citrix goes whole hog with virtual Windows

Citrix Systems has tossed its code into the virtual desktop market. The company this week pumped out Citrix Desktop Server 1.0. The software covers the whole spectrum for sending Windows out from the data center to a user's desktop, including virtual machines, blade PCs and terminal services. Like a number of vendors, Citrix …

COMMENTS

House rules Send corrections
This topic is closed for new posts.
  1. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    this sounds familiar...

    This sounds strangely familiar.

    Wasn't a similar thing tried in the past?

    Think thin clients, Un*x, etc.

    0 0
  2. frank denton

    Did you miss something?

    Your article said "Now Citrix wants to barge into the virtual desktop game, sending out complete OS and application packages from the server room to a PC or thin terminal."

    They already have, for a long time in fact. At my place of work, a large commercial organisation, we use low spec PCs and use IE browser to access all Windows XP OS and Office Apps (plus some otrhers) which are hosted by on-site Citrix Servers. Speed of response is very good unless you do serious Excel graphing at peak times. Its just like using a real PC :)

    At home, I log in to work using https://... via Firefox and a downloaded Java app and have a very good response speed over my cable modem.

    Did I misunderstand what is new about Citrix Desktop Server 1.0?

    0 0
  3. Ashlee Vance (Written by Reg staff)

    Missing something

    Hello, Frank.

    I wondered the same thing and put that question to Citrix.

    As they explain it, the new software is the first product that caters specifically to virtual server and blade PC types of architectures. Rather than streaming down a limited desktop or a few apps, we're talking about managing a full desktop on the server and sending that to end user systems. Citrix reckons that Presentation Server caters more to “delivering robust server-side apps” to customers.

    I think the upshot is that you could do something like this before, but the performance and management should be better with the new software.

    That help?

    AV

    http://theduckrabbit.com/

    0 0
  4. frank denton

    thanks Ashlee, i get it now

    Yes that does help Ashlee.

    With hindsight, what I use is a 'portal' environment, not a full XP desktop environment. It's impressive all the same.

    Thank You

    FD

    0 0
  5. Jack Pastor

    Blade PC's ???

    I just wanted to make a distinction between the term "Blade PCs" and traditional Blade "Servers."

    Most vendors view "Blade PC's" as a 1-1 CPU / User where the box is hidden in the data center rack, but the desktop delivered to the users' Thin Client is his/her own.

    Citrix traditionally resides on "REAL" servers in the back room, where a one-to-many model leverages the power of the server (as well as HA features like RAID etc.) It is also designed for "over-subscription" assuming SOMEBODY will be out sick, so you don't need a Client License for every employee/user.

    Combine Virtualization with the ridiculous compute power of modern CPU and X64 architecture in general, and you have noting but culture/inertia/licensing disrupting the status quo.

    0 0
This topic is closed for new posts.

Other stories you might like