Desktop virtualization for education makes sense

http://www.citrix.com/English/NE/news/news.asp?newsID=1860988

SANTA CLARA » 12/9/2009 » An annual higher education survey conducted by Citrix Systems, Inc. (NASDAQ:CTXS), found desktop virtualization gaining ground as an important technology solution for colleges and universities. Eighty-two percent of approximately 200 higher education IT professionals expressed a clear interest in adding desktop virtualization to their institution’s virtualization profile. The survey was administered during two influential higher education conferences: the League for Innovation in the Community Colleges’ 2009 Conference on Information Technology (CIT), held in October, and the 2009 EDUCAUSE Annual Conference, held in November.

According to the survey, respondents reported that their top academic computing challenges were:

• Lack of adequate IT resources (70 percent);
• Time-consuming maintenance of desktops and applications such as upgrades, patches, etc. (66 percent); and,
• Changing student and faculty demand including access from home or other off-school locations (62 percent).

Scottsdale Community College addressed these issues by implementing desktop virtualization from Citrix in 2009. The college has seen dramatic cost savings and productivity gains from the project, which gives nearly 12,000 students and staff free access to software applications, personal files and network resources from any computer with Internet access.

Another article illustrating the benefits of desktop virtualization, I have spoken with a number of managers that are excited about the concept, at the same time, anything we can do to make the IT services for the end user, more on demand, easier to support and lower cost has to be a good thing. I wonder if this might facilitate more home schooling/remote education? We’ll have to see.

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