28pc of Irish businesses looking at desktop virtualisation

Commissioned by DataSolutions, the survey of 546 companies reveals that of those interested in desktop virtualisation, 16pc 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. Data Solutions said these findings are similar to the results of a similar survey in 2010. This year, however, mobility and the consumerisation of IT are emerging as important motivators for the move to desktop virtualisation.

DataSolutions said it grew its Citrix XenDesktop business by 38pc in 2011 over the previous year. Michael O’Hara, the company’s managing director, believes the major push to desktop virtualisation is still to come over the next twelve months.

“Throughout the second half of 2011 we saw a major uptake in desktop virtualisation, particularly in the government and corporate sectors,” he said. “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.

“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 employee’s 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 PC’s. 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.

“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.”