VMware VDI market share down to 39% in three years, Citrix up to 50% says Goldman Sachs

Despite the great Q2 performance reported two days ago by VMware, not everybody believes that the virtualization vendor will continue to keep its leadership position in every market segment the near future.

Dow Jones in fact reports about a research note released last month by Goldman Sachs about VDI suggesting that Citrix will surpass VMware and lead the market in the next three years.

The financial firm wrote in the Americas Morning Summary of June 9:

We believe Citrix and VMware will dominate the VDI market for the foreseeable future, with close to 90% of the market between the two. However, momentum is diverging currently in favor of Citrix. Hence, we have updated our model to reflect increasing market share for Citrix increasing from 42% in CY2009 to 50% in CY2013. VMware’s share moves from 51% to 39% over the same timeframe. Previously we had both vendors with equal share in CY2013.

The skepticism expressed by the VMware’s executives during the Q2 2010 earnings call certainly didn’t help to counter the Goldman Sachs forecast.