Nat Friedman: Swing toward desktop virtualization favors Linux

In the past six months, every single IT exec or manager who discusses Linux desktops in a corporate setting with Nat Friedman asks about thin-client enviroments. That’s why Friedman – co-creator of the open source Ximian desktop and open source strategies CTO for Novell — predicts that desktop virtualization is going to take off faster than anyone has anticipated, and Linux desktops adoption is going to increase rapidly as a result.

“The pendulum is swinging back, and there’s an interest and need to centralize data for security reasons. IT managers and corporate execs don’t want people to walk out with laptops holding, say, millions of Social Security numbers.

Centralizing desktop management via virtualization and thin clients holds the much-desired promise of easier management, Friedman told me in a recent conversation.

There’s a desire to have lower-cost manageability by having all your applications running centrally and making thin clients into dumb terminals. Virtualization plays a role there, because on the server you could host thousands of desktops and virtualize those sessions so they’re all isolated from one another and run on an operating system that’s transparent to users. Or, you can use multiple desktop apps running on multiple operating systems. You can have computers running OpenOffice, Firefox, Microsoft apps and so on all this playing onto a single thin client. Virtualization makes it possible to dynamically allocate the resources for that. The desktop itself running virtualization locally developers do that. If you run Linux primarily and you want to run Windows for one app, virtualization is one way to get at that.”

In a virtual desktop setting, Friedman concludes, IT managers will be able to choose best-of-breed, easiest-to-manage and lowest-cost applications and operating systems. He thinks Linux and the desktop applications that run on that platform will gain from this interoperability.

I agree with Friedman’s views on how quickly desktop virtualization will be adopted. My team has been surprised by the number of IT managers who’ve expressed keen interest in moving forward with projects. I do think Linux will gain some users from this trend, but I think the key stumbling block will be getting IT shops to evaluate Linux-based desktop apps in the first place. Historically, they’ve taken the easy route, Windows and Microsoft apps.

What do you think? Let me know via your comments or an email to me at editor@searchservervirtualization.com.

For more of Friedman’s views on the desktop marketplace, check out this post on SearchEnterpriseLinux.com.