Future’s bright for virtualisation, says Citrix channel

Citrix (NASDAQ:CTXS) has announced the results of a survey revealing that nearly half (44 percent) of the UK channel say their customers are already using virtualisation, while 55 percent say their customers are in the process of evaluating or trialing the technology.

The survey of more than 150 enterprise partners shows accelerating momentum behind cloud infrastructures. It says desktop virtualisation currently presents the best sales opportunity in the UK, with 62 percent of respondents highlighting the solution as the best selling virtualisation technology.

61 percent of partners suggest that virtualisation, as part of a broader cloud computing initiative, will be responsible for driving sales in three years time. To accommodate this, more than half of partners (54 percent) have already adapted business models to provide cloud services, while nearly a quarter (20 percent) are planning to do so this year.

The BYOD (Bring Your Own Device) concept, an initiative that allows employees to use personal devices for work purposes, is also gaining traction. With the influx of consumer devices in the workplace, over 90 percent of respondents have seen either “some” or “considerable” growth in the demand for virtualisation solutions supporting employee’s own devices (such as tablets or smartphones) in the workplace. Driving this trend is a demand to access information from any location or device, and 25 per cent of the channel sees this as a primary reason for customers adopting desktop virtualisation.

Kevin Bland, channel director for the UK, Ireland & South Africa, at Citrix comments: “As this research shows, we are working within an ever-evolving IT landscape. The impact of consumerisation is already evident as customers look to meet the differing needs of today’s workforce; desktop virtualisation is also making a significant impact in the marketplace.

“However it’s clear that the next three years is not just about broad adoption of desktop virtualisation – just as important is the channel’s investment in cloud based services using desktop and server virtualisation as the underlying platform.”