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Citrix Survey Finds College Labs Looking Ahead to Desktop Virtualization
Wednesday 26. November 2008 - 76 Percent of Surveyed Higher Education IT Pros Interested in Adding Virtual Desktop Delivery to their Institutions Virtualization Profile
A recent survey conducted by Citrix Systems, Inc. (NASDAQ:CTXS), the global leader in application delivery infrastructure, revealed that virtual desktop delivery interests higher education information technology (IT) professionals looking for ways to optimize the computer lab. Seventy-six percent of 200 higher education IT professionals indicated an interest in adding virtual desktop delivery to their institutions virtualization profile. The survey, sponsored by Citrix Systems, was administered last month during the annual EDUCAUSE conference held in Orlando, Florida.
While more than half of the Citrix survey respondents already have a server virtualization and provisioning solution in place, desktop delivery appears to have a place in the future of higher education IT.
“There is clearly a strong interest in virtual desktop delivery for colleges and universities,” said David Podwojski, director of government, education and health for Citrix Systems. “Looking ahead to 2009 and beyond, desktop virtualization is poised to play a starring role on the higher education stage.”
The survey also revealed that higher education IT departments recognize virtualization as a solution that can address top concerns about existing computer labs. Respondents indicated that a virtual computer lab could:
Provide easy delivery of semester-based instructional applications and resources (67 percent);
Reduce costs by eliminating the need to maintain the physical lab and upgrade equipment (62 percent); and
Free IT personnel to work on other projects (58 percent).
In addition, Citrix uncovered a clear competitive advantage component to virtualization in higher education. More than 67 percent of survey respondents indicated that a virtualization-enabled reduction in IT costs would make the institution more competitive. Secure student access to instructional tools from any end device, any time and anywhere, came in a close second (65 percent) in terms of competitive advantages.
“We conducted this survey as part of our ongoing commitment to improving industrys grasp of the challenges faced by todays higher education IT professionals, and there were some real gems uncovered in this research,” said Podwojski. “Were looking forward to learning more as we bring Citrix virtualization solutions – end-to-end, from the server to the desktop – to the higher education community.”