After an active 2023 in the End User Compute space, 2024 is shaping up to be even more dynamic. It is no secret we’re amid a major paradigm shift in EUC – after recent acquisitions and organisational changes from vendors who have been dominant in the space and stable for many years – which has left many professionals in the space wondering what comes next.
First off, the future of EUC is bright. In the same breath, the dynamic nature of the industry means modern application management is even more important than ever before. If the rate of innovation and change are expected to accelerate, organizations need to be even faster.
Let’s take a look at the industry titans
In late 2023, VMware announced their intention to divest their End User Computing division. In the announcement article, they highlighted the division’s profitability and potential going forward.
The effects of the Citrix acquisition are still being realized. With the recent layoffs, it’s certainly a painful time for many in our community. However, there are some things to be excited about. Citrix announced their intention to focus on their core strengths going forward. Customers can see the benefits as the Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops 2311 release published this past December being one of the most feature-rich releases by Citrix in some time.
Of course, Microsoft have also been continuing to improve and grow their respective Azure Virtual Desktop and Windows 365 offerings, with AVD experiencing a growth of nearly 60% year-over-year between 2021 and 2022. We anticipate extensive growth to be reported for this past year, as well.
The Future of EUC is Bright
More broadly speaking, End User Computing is on the cusp of major transformation and innovation. AI has the potential to turbo charge end user productivity in the Windows Operating Systems, Microsoft 365 suite and more. IT departments move to focus on Digital Employee Experience – measuring and acting on user sentiment will lead to happier and more productive employees, with applications becoming containerized the desktop experience will become more stable plus overall desktop security will be enhanced as an extra layer of security will be applied at the application level and desktop teams adopting a DevOps approach to managing their applications will yield fantastic results.
Whilst the recent acquisitions acted as a catalyst for me to get on camera today, it spurred me and my team at Numecent to launch a new video series where I explore the current and future state of End User Computing, from common challenges in enterprise IT to emerging technologies, and more.
Be sure to follow for more videos and check out Numecent.com for the latest on simplifying the mobilization and management of applications across Windows desktop and multi-cloud environments.
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