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IT MANAGEMENT RESEARCH,
INDUSTRY ANALYSIS AND CONSULTING
Executive Summary
Endpoint virtualization is a catch-all term for a range of virtualization technologies aimed at abstracting
the end user experience. Despite the relative maturity in some areas, there is a dearth of understanding
of these technologies. Clear descriptions, new research data, and end user case studies are collected
in this research report, to provide unique quantitative and qualitative research into the real world of
endpoint virtualization.
Key findings include:
• Around 75% of enterprises expect endpoint
virtualization to reduce costs. Most enterprises
also
expect
multiple
functional
benefits,
including agility, mobility, security, and disaster
Over 70% of enterprises achieve
measurable cost reductions
from endpoint virtualization.
recovery.
• Over 70% of enterprises achieve measurable cost reductions from endpoint virtualization, with
the average enterprise reducing overall desktop and application ownership costs by 17%.
• 100% of enterprises with endpoint virtualization achieve some positive outcome. 91% achieve
two or more positive outcomes. Over half (51%) report four or more positive outcomes.
• The average deployment of endpoint virtualization covers around 35% of end users. Only
4% of enterprises with endpoint virtualization have deployed it across their entire end user
population.
• Physical or legacy endpoints still dominate most enterprises, and will continue to do so through
2012 at least, and most likely well into 2015 or more.
• The leading endpoint virtualization technology is browser-based applications (deployed by 69%
of enterprises with endpoint virtualization), alongside remote desktops (also 69%), followed
by remote application virtualization (62%), local OS virtualization (62%), and application
streaming (51%).
• Enterprises tend to deploy between four and five different endpoint virtualization technologies
on average, and almost a quarter deploy more than six different technologies simultaneously.
• Endpoint virtualization is deployed for IT staff in 69% of enterprises, but 64% deploy it for
knowledge workers, 58% for management, 55% for process workers, and 53% for mobile
workers.
• Human issues are the top barriers, including skills (cited by 38% of enterprises), politics (38%),
and lack of resources (36%). Others include lack of features, low application support, and
scalability.
• Top decision factors include ease of use (cited by 75% as very important), ease of management
(69%), and application support (65%). Existing vendor installation is by far least important.
• Despite management gaps and underachieved expectations, EMA recommends organizations
forge ahead with endpoint virtualization to gain pervasive and substantial benefits, as long as
they temper expectations, focus on end users, address human issues, and push vendors for
better support.
Real World Experiences of Endpoint Virtualization
©2009 Enterprise Management Associates, Inc. All Rights Reserved.
Page 3
IT MANAGEMENT RESEARCH,
INDUSTRY ANALYSIS AND CONSULTING
Introduction
Endpoint virtualization is a catch-all term for a range of virtualization technologies aimed at abstract-
ing the end user experience – typically their logical desktop, application, and/or workspace environ-
ments – from the physical systems they rely on to provide that experience – typically a physical desktop
or laptop PC.
Many of these technologies are relatively new – indeed, some are so immature that they have only
been released from beta in this year. However, a number of these technologies are very mature, with
products in their 5th or 6th major releases, and with a history of enterprise deployments going back 15
years or more. While it is in some ways spurious to group them together, they are all being applied
toward a single goal – easing the management of end
user computing, they all can be turned to serve the
Despite the relative maturity in some areas, there is a
dearth of understanding of these technologies – their
real use cases, outcomes, target markets, difficulties,
and cost benefits. Many journal and analyst articles
have expounded on their supposed benefits, some have warned of specific dangers, yet it has mostly
been based only in anecdotal evidence, personal experience, and academic investigation. Moreover, it
has often been exceedingly biased, to the point of being useless.
In order to provide an understanding of the real-world drivers, use cases, and outcomes from endpoint
virtualization, EMA conducted a detailed survey of current endpoint virtualization deployments. Details
of the survey methodology, logistics, and demographics can be found in Appendix A: Demographics
and Methodology, at the end of this document. EMA has also collected multiple interviews with real
world users of these technologies, to provide case studies with deeper insight and more qualitative
analysis into endpoint virtualization.
All of these data and stories are collected in this research report, to provide end user organizations
and software vendors with a unique combination of quantitative and qualitative research into the real
world of endpoint virtualization.
Overview of Endpoint Virtualization
Endpoint virtualization is a (mostly) new set of technologies aimed at abstracting the end user experi-
ence – typically their logical desktop, application, and/or workspace environments – from the physi-
cal systems they rely on to provide that experience – typically a physical desktop or laptop PC. It is
variously known not only as endpoint virtualization, but also as desktop virtualization, application
virtualization, workspace virtualization, end user virtualization, client virtualization, and more. Indeed,
there really is no globally accepted term for these technologies. While EMA will use the term “end-
point virtualization” throughout this report, this is really just for consistency. While small variations
exist between these different terms, for the most part they are used interchangeably.
Real World Experiences of Endpoint Virtualization
©2009 Enterprise Management Associates, Inc. All Rights Reserved.
Page 4
same target markets.
There is a dearth of
understanding of these
technologies.
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