Dom Joly would be proud - with giant iPhones are DataSolutions' Michael O'Hara and Grace O'Rourke Veitch, the new Irish country manager for Citrix
Consumerisation of IT in the Irish workplace is being made possible through the move to desktop virtualisation. According to a new Citrix survey, 28pc of Irish businesses are deploying desktop virtualisation projects.
The research, completed in December 2011, was commissioned by DataSolutions and carried out with 546 companies in Ireland.
Of those interested in desktop virtualisation, 16pc said they were looking at an immediate project, with a further 46pc saying they had a project planned for 2012.
One of the big drivers of desktop virtualisation for these Irish businesses continues to be cost, including the associated reduced total cost of ownership and the reduction in Windows 7 migration costs.
These findings are in tandem with the results of a similar survey carried out in 2010 but this year, mobility and the consumerisation of IT are emerging as important motivators for the move to desktop virtualisation.
Xen and the art of desktop virtualisation
DataSolutions grew its Citrix XenDesktop business by 38pc in 2011 when compared to 2010 and Michael O’Hara, managing director, DataSolutions, believes the major push to desktop virtualisation is still to come over the next 12 months.
“Throughout the second half of 2011 we saw a major uptake in desktop virtualisation, particularly in the government and corporate sectors.
“Four times more deals were completed in this time, across all sectors, when compared to the first half of the year, and this trend has continued into 2012,” said O’Hara.
“With many Irish organisations still in the process of migrating from Windows XP to Windows 7, and with Windows 8 on the horizon, we are finding the desktop virtualisation market exceptionally strong this year.”
A separate Citrix survey recently found that 49pc of organisations intend to leverage their desktop virtualisation investment to support ‘Bring Your Own Device’ (BYOD) policies. IT departments are increasingly under pressure to support employees’ personal devices as smartphones and tablets become commonplace in the office.
Desktop virtualisation technology supports BYOD policies by removing the reliance on standard corporate supplied PCs. Using desktop virtualisation, desktops, applications and data can be securely and centrally managed in the data centre and delivered to all types of users across many different devices.
Cloud is key driver of desktop virtualisation
“The cloud will be a key driver of desktop virtualisation in the coming months,” said Grace O’Rourke Veitch, Irish country manager for Citrix.
“Consumers have been using cloud-based applications for some time now, whether they were aware of it or not, and are comfortable with an array of devices for accessing their applications.
“This has been a big factor in the explosion of personal devices in the workplace. For the enterprise, security issues surrounding these devices is a major concern, and at last June’s Citrix Virtual Computing Forum, 52pc of the Irish IT managers surveyed at the event said security was their main concern with cloud environments. Desktop virtualisation addresses this challenge, ensuring data is secure no matter how it is accessed,” she said.
Grace O’Rourke Veitch will be joined by leading industry experts and Irish businesses at the annual Virtual Computing Forum on 12 June in Dublin’s Guinness Storehouse, to discuss the challenges and solutions in the areas of the consumerisation of IT and the adoption of cloud for Irish businesses.
