Arthur Kruk

It's an old headache that seemed to be going away, when most everyone in the enterprise was running Internet Explorer 6 on Wintel XP.   The good thing about the Microsoft desktop monopoly was that UI developers could count on a predictable "easel", or foundation on which to deploy fat clients or web apps.  Back when I was at Oracle and we had one monolithic suite of web e-business applications, we could get away with testing solely on IE, at least until a growing set of customers insisted we support those rogue Mac users. But if you're building rich UI apps and trying to leverage the goodies available for PHP, Flex, Silverlight et al, that headache has become a full-on migraine.   Enterprises can't dictate desktops anymore, nor is it cost-effective to try. Now the landscape consists of: XP, Vista and cowboys running pre-releases of Windows, with all kinds of memo... (more)

Widespread Use of Mobile Devices Undermines the Business Case for VDI

Previously I questioned whether development managers could justify writing mobile platform-specific apps for iPhones, and other mobile devices with umpteen additional OS and version possibilities.  I suggested that virtual desktops (VDI) could simplify the playing field for user experience developers. Sure enough, Citrix Receiver now delivers Windows apps to multiple versions of iPhones, Android phones, and their tablet counterparts.  However, whether or not availability of Windows apps on these devices came about fast enough, enterprise solution players did not hesitate to buil... (more)