Not to long ago I did a presentation at the VMWare User Group in Columbia where I compared XenDesktop to VMWare View (VDI).  In this presentation I spent the majority of my time discussing the pros and cons of both of these products.  I wanted to post my main points and give an update to the technologies, which you see below:<!--more-->
<ul>
	<li>Design: VMWare has a much simpler design and is easier to administer and to setup, whereas XenDesktop has an overly complicated design.</li>
	<li>Experience: The XenDesktop user experience was better than the View experience.  This is mainly due to the ICA protocol's dominance over the RDP protocol.  VMWare is aware of this and with the new PC over IP protocol, ICA (and Citrix) has a lot to worry about.</li>
	<li>Virtualization: VMWare View gives you licenses to the number one Virtualization platform in existance, ESX.  XenDesktop gives you XenServer.  Citrix was smart enough to make XenDesktop work on not only XenServer but also HyperV and ESX.</li>
	<li>Cost: In apples to apples comparison of the two products VMWare wins in cost by about $50 per user.  However, something to keep in mind is that Microsoft always get their cut regardless of the solution.  The VECD license is needed for every virtual desktop.  This license alone can do major damage to any IT departments dream of going virtual on their desktops.</li>
	<li>Additional costs:  Even with the high license cost of these solutions the one thing to keep sight of is the Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) on any desktop.  The average IT department spends 20% of the budget purchasing a new workstation and 80% on the maintenance of that workstation.  In a head to head bid with VDI verses a desktop, VDI will lose every time.  However if the TCO is taken into account significant cost savings can be found.  Just keep in mind the real cost savings are found not in the purchase price but by removing all the excess amount of support that goes into each and every desktop on the network.</li>
</ul>
Some things I didn't get to mention at the VMUG conference is that I feel Citrix needs to revisit their licensing scheme.  VMWareis already beating them on the cost out of the gate and frankly ICA over RDP doesn't mean jack to the CFO, not when your CFO wouldn't notice any diffence doing spreadsheets.  Also, VMWare gives you ESX for free.  The only caveat to this license is that you are only allowed to run your desktops on these ESX servers.  You can tie in your virtual server environment with your virtual desktop environment all within the same management interface for a lower cost than doing XenDesktop with the free XenServer.  XenServer is a decent product and it can get the job done, but most IT departments who are serious about virtualization are going to lean towards ESX because it's superior regardless that ESX cost more.  The beauty of View is that you get ESX and it cost less then XenDesktop.

I think XenDesktop is an excellent product and I personally don't think the setup is all that difficult to figure out.  Yes it's MUCH more complicated but once you figure out the pieces it makes sense. 

I've been through ESX classes and XenServer classes and after all of that I just dont' feel that I'd willingly put XenServer anywhere.  I think if Citrix surrenders on XenServer and have the same approach they do with XenApp (it runs on Microsoft Terminal Server but offers superior performance/security/etc) I think XenDesktop can make an impact.  Its sad to me because I think XenServer is superior to HyperV but I doubt MS will back down on HyperV, and it's probably in Citrix's best interest not to make MS to mad.  That battle has yet to play out, so in the mean time I'm for the front runner who I don't think is going anywhere.