Any customer interested in client virtualization knows that 2010 will be a critical year for VDI because a number of vendors, including leading players like Citrix and VMware, will begin to release their client hypervisors.
Thanks to the client hypervisors customers will be finally able to adopt server-based computing solutions without losing mobility and flexibility.
Citrix announced that it’s working with Intel on XenClient in January 2009. It was expected to be released before the end of the year, but it seems that it won’t come out before Q1 2010.
VMware too is working with Intel on its Client Virtualization Platform (CVP), which won’t appear before sometime during H1 2010.
Both client hypervisors seem to rely on the Intel vPro technology. And this may be a problem.
At the end of November the Japanese website PC Watch published several Intel documents detailing the company roadmap for its new processors Core i3, i5, i7 and the imminent i9.
One of those documents clarifies which CPUs versions will have vPro and which ones will not:
Of course this may be a draft roadmap, and its legend may be misunderstood, but what it seems here is that only two CPUs have vPro: the Core i5 6×0 (codename Clarkdale) and the Core i7 8×0 (codename Bloomfield).
If this is correct and confirmed customers may have to be extremely careful when refreshing their desktop machines.
And even if the workstation/laptop model they selected seems to have one of the CPUs above, it’s worth to double-check with the vendor if the vPro feature is enabled. Nobody wants to have an enterprise-wide VAIO-gate.
Thanks to Engadget for the Intel Roadmap news.