India is the fourth largest market for VDI in the world : Milind Yedkar, GM, Asia Pacific & Japan, Cloud Client Computing, Dell

Mobility is the lifeline of any new age organization. Employees are demanding the flexibility to work on-the-go and enterprises are increasingly looking for flexible IT infrastructure to make this possible. On these lines, Milind Yedkar, General Manager, Asia Pacific & Japan, Cloud Client Computing, Dell, shares his views on the role of client virtualization and VDI (Virtual Desktops) in a modern day enterprise, also outlining the companies contribution in the space.

Tell us a bit about the evolution of VDI

A notebook is self-sufficient. It can be used as a stand-alone system, even without internet. We call it a fat client. So ideally, one can work on mails without internet and then connect it to send or receive mails. But this system has risk associated with it. The integrity of the data in a fat client can be disrupted. It is vulnerable to theft, hacking etc.

But when the same system is centralized, say, a data centre, the encryption or protection is multi-layered and stronger than a stand-alone OS in a fat client.

The concept of  DV (Desktop Virtualization) is not new but technology takes time to catch up. VDI is part of DV.

What makes VDI so important in the case of a modern enterprise?

Microsoft is releasing updates and patches frequently and for a large organization, to install those updates on every machine (thick client) is a big job. It gets expensive to maintain and update assets in that environment. But in a VDI environment the maintenance becomes much easier and cost effective because everything is in one place.  For instance, a bank in Australia doesn’t want to maintain office space. They hate travelling to CBDs. From the aspect of quality of life, a work-from-home suits them. In this case, I will not give them laptops with data in it (fat client) but a thin client, which works regardless of their location. If they have a client meeting, they take their laptop and access information from there (without taking risk).

The traditional EUC is marked at 4 B in number worldwide. Its growth is slow, sometimes de-growing, and mostly stable. Whereas VDI is growing in double digit. Last quarter (2015) India had the highest growth in this segment (86% y-o-y).

How is demand for VDI shaping up in the Indian market?  And the opportunities?.

India is the fourth largest market of VDI in the world. India has overtaken Japan this year (2016). The largest market is China followed by USA and UK. Business market in India contributes to 5.5% of the VDI segment worldwide. Given the double-digit growth in this segment, Dell’s position is very stable now.

There are five big verticals mainly-Banking and financial services, Education, Healthcare, Government and Back offices/BPO. For certain jobs like video processing, designing or video calling we have dual core systems in place. We have quad-core, quad-display for clients in trading where the jobs demands it. It is ultimately sharing; some things are better done at the end point some things are better done at the servers! That is why we are a solution provider. It not a little box that we sell and tell people that this is a thin client!

How do you see the market competition in this space?

We are not market leader in India, but we are getting there. Worldwide we are market leaders. In USA, three years back Dell bought a company called WYSE, which is a market leader. Today we have 45% market share in North America, 30+% in Europe. In Asia, because WYSE was more focused on those two regions the growth is slower, but we are getting there. We are about 24-25% in India. In Indian market people are yet to adopt to this technology and soon they will understand the value. We are still number two but our share is growing.

The value that Dell is providing to the IT industry is that we are the only company offering a true end-to-end solution. We bought WYSE three years back and the total number of patents in this field that Dell owns is higher than all other companies put together. It is not just a win in terms of the market share but we have a dominance in terms of the Intellectual Property and we are driving the development of this industry.

Other makers either use Windows or Linux based thin-client, we have our own operating system called WYSE thinOS in which we own the IP. It is so thin that it is virus and malware immune.

What Dell has done is that we have separated this into a completely stand-alone business unit. We are only company to do so, and most companies sell thin clients as an option. If anybody talks about VDI, I am obliged to talk to him. I have sales teams around the globe who talk only VDI. That is end-to-end solution.

Dell is still largely known as a traditional PC brand, though it is an end-to-end player. How did this synergy (DELL + WYSE) happen? And how important is VDI to Dell in its overall strategy?

Think of it this way; from the company’s point of view we have a large P&L ($30+ Billion) on traditional end-user computing (desktops & notebooks). This is our bread and butter. Now imagine a bank saying we don’t need traditional desktops and are moving to VDI. If Dell does not have VDI as a business unit, we lose a customer. So from an end-customer point of view, to maintain the relationship with the customer, we are offering a solution with an IP win at that. This is tomorrow’s technology and that is why it is growing in double digits. It is absolutely key as far as the company’s strategy is concerned.