Gartner predicts virtual desktop boom

On the scrapheap? New architectures are challenging status quo of distributed computing

Hosted virtual desktops (HVD) will account for 40 per cent of the global professional PC market by 2013, Gartner has asserted.

According to the research giant, the HVD market will boom from 500,000 to 49 million units over the next four years as the traditional bastion of distributed computing is challenged by alternative architectures.

Gartner advised PC vendors to buckle down for the transition and warned it would have a major impact on purchasing trends. End users will now look to replace some desktop PCs with less expensive devices and replace them less frequently, rather than purchasing high volumes of desktop PCs on a regular basis, the market watcher said.

Annette Jump, research director at Gartner, said: “PC vendors must prepare for the growth in demand for this client computing architecture by adjusting sales strategies and compensation models or they risk losing expenditure share with enterprise customers.

“Distributed computing has been the dominant client computing architecture for the past 15 to 20 years, but several changes in the way users can access applications and client computing capabilities are bringing a number of alternative architectures to the fore.”

Gartner predicts HVD revenues of $1.3bn-$1.5bn in 2009 – less than one per cent of the global professional PC market. By 2013 revenues are forecast to reach $65.7bn – equating to a 40 per cent share.

However, Jump said many end users will delay purchases until after the economic gloom lifts.

“Despite the further improvements in performance and manageability that are expected of HVDs in 2009, the current economic downturn is expected to inhibit the adoption of HVDs in the short term because HVD deployments require large upfront investments in server and network infrastructure,” she said.

“Because of IT budget cuts, we expect many planned HVD implementations to be delayed from 2009 into 2010 and 2011.”