Over the last couple of years the buzz and expectations around the Virtual Desktop market have increased steadily. One of the questions that I am asked frequently is how big the market is and who has the biggest share of it
Given how blurred the line between Legacy App Publishing and VDI has become, it is not an easy task to figure this out. Also, as a VMware employee I cannot share sales figures outside of what is publicly discussed by our management team in the analyst calls. Earlier this month I ran into this market research (Hard Field Data on Virtual Desktop ROI & Adoption) from Morgan Stanley which analyses the state of the VDI installed base which is a good way to look at it as it shows what is being deployed in the customer base. Please contact Morgan Stanley for the complete report. Here is the main chart about current deployments:
The market looks evenly split between VMware and Citrix.
—– Update —-
Joe in the comments below mentioned a 60%-30% split in favor of Citrix.
I re-looked at the Morgan Stanley report and found a reference to revenue model, not installed base that goes like this:
I added this for completeness.
As I said above, revenue is hard to model right now because VMware does not split it out and Citrix has been running a trade up program that blurrs the lines between app pub and desktop virtualization. Right now, I am more interested into what customers deploy which is reflected in the two charts above and in this Morgan’s summary
Note the clear preference that customers have for VMware for their VDI back-end.
—— end of update ——
I will share more third party data as I run into it.
Vittorio
Simon Bramfitt
June 13, 2011
Interesting data Vittorio, thanks for sharing.
I’m very surprised to see Microsoft doing so well. It would be interesting to see the detail behind the data and understand what Morgan Stanley considered to be Desktop virtualization for the purposes of this survey. A broad definition including App-V and Windows XP mode in Windows 7 might be responsible for raising MS score here.
Regards
Simon
vittorioviarengo
June 13, 2011
yes, that is an interesting one.
Joe
June 14, 2011
Interesting – the Morgan Stanley Report itself quotes 60% market share to Citrix and 30% to View? And, I can’t see that graph in there? Something is up?
vittorioviarengo
June 14, 2011
Thank Joe. Where exactly? The study mentioned a MODEL for revenue that they made (not installed base). I am adding it to the article for completeness. I am more interested in what people use in production.
Thanks
Vittorio
Murray
June 14, 2011
I haven`t seen the 2011 data but in the March 2010 Morgan Stanley CIO data it was clear that VMware was leading this race. I am looking at a slide right now from that survey that states 49% share to VMware, 18% to Microsoft and 17% to Citrix. Word on the street though is that it is very much a 2-horse race between VMware and Citrix, so I wonder how good these surveys are and how wide their response pool was. Numbers schmumbers I guess.
vittorioviarengo
June 14, 2011
49% to 17% on the broker side seems off to me. Most of the data we are looking at now points to a head to head. Their response pool was 127 IT Executives – Vittorio
Bryan Salek
June 14, 2011
Great summary, Vittorio. There are lots of numbers out there and, assuming we believe this Morgan Stanley report, you did a good job of clarifying them.
-Bryan
Neal Mueller
June 14, 2011
interesting
Joe
June 15, 2011
Hi, Can you please confirm you are referencing the Morgan Stanley Report dated March 30, 2011? I don’t think you are.
vittorioviarengo
June 15, 2011
Hard Field Data on Virtual Desktop ROI & Adoption – May 18 2011
Joe
June 30, 2011
Thanks for clarifying. That report you reference is based on customer surveys – not what’s shipping. That makes more sense as the numbers are 60-30 in favour of Citrix.
Here’s the latest piece:
http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20110627005056/en/IDC-MarketScape-Evaluates-Leading-Vendors-Desktop-Virtualization