• It’s not necessarily an either/or scenario. Because tablet and mobile computing are still in their infancy stages, the enterprise should take this opportunity to prepare its mobile strategy now.
• With many vendors offering access to VDI via RDP, VNC, or ICA, these services should be seen as complementary rather than competitive.
• Tablets are more of a threat to PCs, laptops, and Windows OS, but not so much to the practice and development of virtualization technology. On the other hand, without aggressive development for virtualization-friendly hardware, it’ll remain status quo for a while, with the PC industry remaining healthy for the time-being.
• One member of the group with experience in IT management said that the “security concern” is another major reason tablets are complementary to VDI rather than competitive. He posed the question: “Are companies prepared to accept VDI as a replacement for traditional desktop computing (regardless of client access device) and does the value add of VDI equate to real ROI?”
• A VMware technical trainer in the group wants an endpoint that is the application doing work for him (e.g. email, documents, etc.), rather than the device running the app. The ideal device is one that allows access to those applications without worrying about the in-betweens.

One topic that got a lot of attention in the discussion was phone virtualization. Will this emerging technology improve or detract from existing enterprise mobile policies? Perhaps the evolution in the device market will push innovation and customization in the desktop virtualization market as well. Either way, it seems IT pros are looking forward to the changes coming in 2011.

How do you think tablets will affect desktop virtualization? Let us know in the comments section or send me an email.

Melanie Yarbrough is the assistant community editor at ITKnowledgeExchange.com. Follow her on Twitter or send her an email at Melanie@ITKnowledgeExchange.com.

The service has already been in beta with dozens of customers trying it out, and the early returns are good: A reported 22% uptick in productivity and over 55 ChatterExchange apps available for out-of-the-box integration.

We were actually leaked some demo screenshots straight from the Chatter team itself as it brainstormed with similar software groups, and the stream is reproduced, unaltered, below:

Michael Morisy is the community editor for ITKnowledgeExchange. He can be followed on Twitter or you can reach him at Michael@ITKnowledgeExchange.com.