Pretty neat, both of them; not remotely what I think about when someone says "desktop virtualization," but it certainly qualifies.

The uncharitable interpretation of what's going on in the market is that the term "desktop virtualization" has ceased to mean much because it can me so many different things.

The charitable —and probably more accurate —interpretation is that the desktop virtualization market is fragmenting quickly into a host of niche markets, each of which is "desktop virtualization" in the same way that mainframe system-software development and AJAX casual game programming are both "application development." They use a lot of the same tools and the apparent process (lock door, shove pizza underneath ). But what happens behind the closed door and the purpose to which the product is put are very, very different.

Which is a good thing for end users, who should be able to pick from a menu of options to find exactly the set of functions that meet their needs and preferences.

(It's also a good thing for bloggers and analysts, who are free to boldly declare desktop virtualization The Next Big Thing, the current Big Thing, the last Big Thing, the Thing that was never Big, the Thing that will never be Big, the next-generation Thing, or the Dead Thing. At any given time during the next five years SOME part of the desktop virtualization "market" is guaranteed to fit whichever resolution the Magic 8-Ball predicts.)

My personal Magic 8-Ball predicts exactly the same thing. Desktop Virtualization is here to stay; I'm just not sure what kinds of it we're going to end up with in the end.