VMware and Citrix both seek to upgrade XenApp customers to VDI

VMware and Citrix are both eager to upgrade Citrix XenApp customers to their respective VDI solutions. Former Citrix distributor, Alternative Technology Group of Arrow ECS (AltTech), with support from VMware, announced this morning its "Virtual Desktop Trade-in Program." As with Citrix's Trade-Up program, the Trade-In offer expires June 30, 2010. It offers XenApp customers a free upgrade to VMware View 4 Premier, but with an innovative twist that converts a normal CapEx budget expense into OpEx. Customers just make 36 monthly payments equivalent to the the Subscription Advantage costs they had been paying to Citrix.

Upgrading to View 4

The AltTech program originated with President & COO Bill Botti. AltTech was a prominent and specialized Citrix distributor for 13 years until Citrix terminated its relationship with all distributors other than Ingram Micro in 2008 (A rough chronology of events leading to the program is listed below). Botti was looking for a way to accelerate the growth of VMware View using existing Citrix Subscription Advantage expense each year to fund the project. In addition to aggressive pricing from VMware and aggressive financing from Arrow ECS Leasing Services, Botti wanted to make the migration planning easy. AltTech worked with Lakeside Software to use its SysTrack VMP (Virtual Machine Planner) to enable the analysis necessary to develop a clear migration plan.

AltTech estimates that XenApp customers spend on average around $75 per concurrent user per year in Subscription Advantage licensing to remain current. XenApp customers can instead spend the equivalent in monthly payments, without any cost for financing, over a three-year period and will receive a free VMware View 4 Premier license (also licensed by concurrent user). View 4 Premier includes the back-end vSphere Enterprise Plus licensing as well as ThinApp for application virtualization. The program, which requires customer credit approval, includes 3 years of basic Subscription and Support on the View 4 Premier licenses.

In order to assist with the conversion, customers will receive a free physical PC infrastructure assessment with SysTrack VMP from Lakeside Software. SysTrack VMP provides an integrated tool suite that provides assessment, capacity planning, virtualization modeling, predictive analysis, migration planning, storage throughput, space planning, power planning, firewall and latency analysis, user and application behavior analysis, pooled desktop / image planning, and application virtualization compatibility analysis.

Citrix Trade-up Program

Citrix's own recently announced trade-up programs seeks to migrate customers from XenApp to XenDesktop 4. Customers who upgrade all of their XenApp licenses at once receive either two XenDesktop user or device based license for every one XenApp concurrent license they trade-up. The trade-up includes 12 months of Subscription Advantage on XenDesktop 4.

Citrix's declining XenApp licensing revenues and increasing Subscription Advantage revenues give it a particularly strong interest in persuading customers to migrate to its VDI solution. But while XenDesktop tends to get great reviews (see InfoWorld's 2010 Technology of the Year Awards), analysts say that it runs a distant second to VMware in market share. VMware's dominance in the data center gives it an advantage with organizations wishing to run both their server and desktop virtual machines with the same platform and management console.

Zoaring Popularity of VDI 

The Enterprise and Platinum editions of XenDesktop now include XenApp. Although XenApp's Terminal Server legacy extends back to 1995, it never quite made it into the mainstream as a widespread desktop replacement. VDI, on the other hand, continues to generate extraordinary buzz and awareness. Whether View or XenDesktop, VDI is generally perceived as superior to the Terminal Services (now RDS) based model because of the elimination of concerns about session lock-downs, application incompatibilities and a different look and feel.

One of the big appeals of the virtual desktop model to IT administrators is its simplicity – it's just Windows running in a VM. It doesn't require specialists who know how to manipulate applications, dive into printing intricacies and work with registry hacks.

AltTech's Botti stated about the program, "I am excited about working closely with VMware, Lakeside Software, and Arrow financing and services, to provide a comprehensive way for users of Citrix XenApp to migrate to a full VMware View implementation. Providing the assessment, migration planning and financing to make this a nearly cost neutral process for the end user creates exciting new sales opportunities for our resellers."

 

Rough Chronology Behind AltTech's Virtual Desktop Trade-in Program

 

Alternative Technology founded	1986
Citrix founded	1989
Citrix WinFrame ships	1995
Alternative Technology signs distribution agreement with Citrix	1995
Citrix signs distribution agreement with Ingram-Micro	1996
VMware founded	1998
Bill Botti joins Alternative Technology as president & COO	2002
VMware coins VDI term	2005/2006
Alternative Technology signs distribution agreement with VMware	August 8, 2006
Citrix purchases XenSource	October 22, 2007
VMware ships 1st version of VDI: VDM 2.0.	February 1, 2008
Citrix ships XenDesktop VDI	May 20, 2008
Citrix discontinues distribution agreement with Alternative Technology	August 29, 2008
Citrix announces "Open Door" targeted to VMware customers	August 14, 2009
Alternative Technology Group of Arrow ECS announces Virtual Desk Trade-in program targeted to Citrix customers	January 11, 2010

Comments

[John Coleman]

If a customer wants to dump Citrix for VMware View, let them. I tried it and it failed big time. I almost got fired. Now I've got Xendesktop in place with Xenapp and finally have an environment that works.

[Steve Kaplan]

John,

I haven't personally been involved with a XenDesktop deployment, though I've heard very good things about it. I have been involved with several very successful View engagements. Whether XenApp or View, however, a successful virtual desktop migration necessitates a lot of planning, testing & piloting. It's relatively a no-brainer to virtualize 100 physical servers to 6 virtualization hosts - users aren't affected except that they might notice improved performance, no more hardware maintenance windows, etc. The desktop side, though, is very different. VDI, whether VMware or Citrix, is not only very technically demanding - but should include social engineering in terms of user expectations and education.

[Jim]

Does this offer include the $110 per user per year VECD tax on VDI from MS? Is this vendor subsidizing that in the $75 per user "upgrade" offer? How do they manage the shift from concurrent to the VDI per-device licensing of VECD?

[Steve Kaplan]

Jim, Unfortunately, neither the AltTech Trade-in or Citrix Trade-up programs include Microsoft VECD licensing. The AltTech program is on a concurrent basis, so nothing changes when upgrading from XenApp. The Citrix program, I would assume, simply means that you make a choice when migrating XenApp concurrent licenses to be licensed for XenDesktop either by user or by device.

[Steven Hunt]

That is correct Steve.