VMware launches open source virtual desktop software; Assessing the fallout
VMware on Tuesday launched an open source client for virtual desktops in a move that mixes a little bit of offense and defense. — In a statement, the company said its VMware View Open Client would allow compnaies …
Context & Ripple Effects
VMware's open source View client extends a playbook the company has run before: it made its server product free in 2006 and kept refining the free tier through 2007's updated free offering, using giveaways to defend its virtualization franchise as rivals circled. The move also rides the desktop-virtualization window opened by Microsoft's Vista licensing changes, which opened real doors for virtual desktop adoption.
First-order effects
- Companies evaluating virtual desktop infrastructure get a no-cost, open source way to connect to VMware View desktops, lowering the entry barrier for pilots and deployments.
- VMware simultaneously plays offense (widening View's reach beyond its own client stack) and defense (preempting Citrix and Microsoft from owning the open VDI client layer).
Second-order effects
- Citrix and Microsoft face pressure to respond on the client side — either opening their own access clients or competing harder on management and broker value, where the money in VDI actually sits.
- Hardware and thin-client vendors gain a standardized open client they can build against, expanding the ecosystem of endpoints that can reach VMware-hosted desktops.
Third-order effects
- If the pattern holds, the hypervisor and client layers of virtualization commoditize while vendors migrate revenue up-stack to management, brokering, and cloud services — a shift VMware itself later echoed by pushing developer platforms like Cloud Foundry toward laptops.
- Open sourcing strategic components becomes standard defensive practice in enterprise software, but it also exposes vendors to license-compliance risk — a tension that later surfaced when VMware was sued over alleged GPL infractions.
The trend: Enterprise virtualization vendors are progressively giving away edge software — clients, hypervisors, runtimes — to defend and monetize the control points above them.