Last week I held a presentation for our Sales department. As we sold a lot of Citrix Xantippe over the last few years they wanted me to tell them more about the differences between a VMware View and the traditional terminal server based Citrix XenApp solution. So I made a summery about the differences and similarities. When VMware also asked me about the presentation I decided to translate it into English and share it with you all.

Similarities with VMware View XenApp
Crappy written applications are not good candidates for a centralized computer environment. Same
Display protocol is key for a good user acceptance. Same
Introduction of an extra management layer. Same even more.
Extra costs per user (View+VECD+Profile Mngt) Same (XenApp+TS CAL+Profile Mngt)
Excellent and high available back-office environment. Same
Endpoint Management is not a thing to forget. Same
Need a network connection (not with offline VDI). Same (not with App. Virtualization)
Easy to offer remote access. Same
Good network connection between locations are  key. Same
Differences with VMware View
XenApp
VDI maximizes the today’s resources like processors,memory and storage. Not, Because of a lot application are 32Bit today the Windows OS is the limitation.
VDI uses a desktop operating system. XenApp uses a Windows server operating system.
Same way of thinking about desktop management. Different way of thinking about desktop management.
Desktops clone, delete, suspend and snapshots. No cloning, snapshots and always on.
Bad applications only affects only virtual desktop user. Bad application affects all users.
Color depth 32Bit. 24Bit
Large user freedom possible. Not possible because of shared OS.
On the fly maintenance possible. Not possible to move sessions between hosts.
User session roaming easier. Only with web interface.
Designed for LAN-Speeds Designed for WAN-Speeds
Depends less on desktop OS. Depends more on Windows server OS.
Mix of OS: Linux, JEOS, 64Bit, 32Bit etc etc Bound to the Windows server OS.
More logical choice after server virtualization. Not logical and big step.
Easy back-up and recovery. More complex back-up en recovery.