Hello Craig,
Sorry for the late response.
Some other things needed my attention first.
Your crystal-ball kung fu is indeed quite strong ;-)
I am wondering though.
I don't like to wait 5 years before all enterprise apps are device
independent.
How to move forward this year and the next?
How will the best hybrid working environment look now when we still need
for instance MS office and some special windows based accounting software?
If we can bypass VDA licensing this would be nice ;-).
So are there any plans for some open desktop for the Sun ray?
Are we moving to Oracle linux or Solaris 11 as a desktop?
The Virtualbox part of the VDI solution isn't that interesting anymore
if you want to move away from the Windows desktop.
It will be much more cost effective to just run a desktop on de Sun Ray
servers and pull the apps from apps servers.
I would be happy to move to Solaris 11 but some managed desktop profile
control (A Point Of Control) software would be helpful.
Kind regards,
Ivar
Craig Bender schreef:
Call me a pessimist. ;)
Not to brag, but my crystal-ball kung fu is quite strong. Take a look.
I don't see their behavior ever changing until they are in an underdog
situation. The current crop of devices and remote protocols is
something they've never faced before. But they are not about to waive
the white flag and they will do what they have to do to protect their
market share.
Take a trip down memory lane. When did applications stop being more
important than the OS? 1995. Windows 95 made the OS the killer app.
Before Windows 95, applications ruled. They ruled because they made
device consolidation possible. The early PC OS was horrible, but
applications transformed on device into multiple things. The
applications on a PC replaced your typewriter, your filing cabinet and
your ledger. Forget DOS, forget Office, forget NT. Windows 95 is
what created the Microsoft we know today. Never before did people
line up to buy an operating system. MS marketing created a rock star
before anybody even clicked their first Start button.
But today you have non-Windows tablets and phones (iOS, Android, etc)
that are once again showing people that the application is what is
important. The application is once again transforming the device. My
phone can be a credit card terminal? My phone can be a GPS? My phone
can be (insert anything you can find on an app store)? Do you care
about the OS? Only if the App isn't available for it. So what are
application developers doing? They are writing more and more apps for
more and more devices. If an app is successful on one device
platform, you can almost guarantee it will be written for another.
That hasn't happened since 1995.
You also have the next generation of corporate users who use these
devices far more than they ever have, or ever will use a PC.
This spells *big* trouble for MS. Especially since they've failed at
almost every device attempt they've ever done outside of Xbox. And
even that's not the top selling console. This is not my opinion, the
is fact.
One may say this is all the more reason the go with the RemoteFX =
Free WVDA theory. While a nice thought, that doesn't make up the
revenue loss should the Windows PC OEM market go south. And it's
going to go south sooner or later. A PC is more and more impractical
as internet access becomes more and more important. Today getting to
critical Windows apps is important for the enterprise space. But the
apps that will be critical tomorrow are those that can be accessed
regardless of the device. Devices are driving everything, and the
majority of them are not Windows-based devices.
Any enterprise app that has a hard requirement for Windows or worse IE
will be dead in five years if it's not also running on Firefox,
Chrome, etc and has no specific OS requirement. Name one enterprise
app that is showing up for iOS or Android that requires Windows. This
trend will do the proverbially hockey stick in the next year or so.
Remote protocols will always be important because speed of light
issues will always exist and the global work force will continue to be
more and more distributed. The protocols that don't require
additional network gear to perform regardless of distance from the
server will be those that survive.
Also against the RemoteFX = no WVDA theory is the fact that MS has
almost zero track record for making thin client computing more
affordable than than a PC. I'm not trying to make anyone who likes MS
Operating systems mad, it's the truth. The one thing they did that
died a quick death was the no TS-CAL requirement for W2K Pro machines.
Sure, sometimes their own licensing bites them and a loop hole exists
such as Office gets licensed where it is displayed. Great for call
centers, not so great for something like SGD or Citrix (or even OVDC)
where people access it from many different devices.
Finally, all of the RemoteFX = Requirement for future offering is
based on the assumption that RemoteFX will allow things will to scale
where it will still be a profitable ROI. Here's where you'll get my
"opinion" (mixed with a bit of perfmon results)...and I'd say that's
probably not going to happen. ;)
But if you were left with only the MS point of view, you'd see hear
none of the above. Thin clients, VDI, SBC, is dead. You do remember
their anti-Linux and anti-Vmware campaigns right? Those should have
been dead by now right? "Get the facts!"
I really like VDI, but if one really needs windows, it still seems
like the exception that terminal server won't do today. And if you
*want* VDI, I'd really like to have someone show me where a Win7
device has a better ROI than Sun Ray given the same VDI back-end. The
"VDI tax" of WVDA is going to be about $60 a year more than SA. The
admin, power, and productivity of Sun Ray will blow that $60 per year
out of the water.
We are witnessing the rebirth of the application. Devices will
continue be important, but only if they allow unfettered access to the
applications or content users want.
I wonder how a device that doesn't ever need an app installed on it to
be transformed will fare in the future? The Sun Ray has always been
about access to applications. Most of those on this list knew this
even though Sun's marketing couldn't quite figure it out. Whatever
you think about Oracle, they've put more into this portfolio in one
year than Sun did in the past 10. The future is looking pretty
bright. Of course, I am very biased. :)
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