Tully Rinckey PLLC, a mid-sized but fast-growing law firm with offices in Albany, N.Y., and Washington, D.C., recently started deploying virtualization technologies as a way to facilitate the firm's expansion, writes David F. Carr in a commentary at Forbes. With plans of doubling in size within the next year and a half, the firm was looking for a way to maintain a centralized IT structure while ensuring reliable, high-quality computing among its offices.

With server virtualization technology from VMware, Tully Rinckey was able to address what was becoming an increasingly taxed and complicated network. Three beefed-up servers support virtual desktops and virtual servers for applications. The firm runs a call center for potential clients, and it may make use of virtualization there to allow customized desktops to be downloaded at the beginning of a shift, and the computer would return to a standardized format once the shift ends.

Despite the enthusiasm for virtual desktops at Tully Rinckey, desktop virtualization has not erupted into the powerful sales driver this year that many analysts predicted, reports Kevin Fogarty at CIO magazine. According to research from International Data Corp., desktop virtualization technology is growing at about the same rate as last year.

The need to refresh old PCs and migrate to Windows 7, along with an improving economy, were supposed to have driven broader adoption of desktop virtualization, analysts had predicted. But as it turns out, many companies are still experimenting with the technology.

For more:
- see David F. Carr's commentary at Forbes
- see Kevin Fogarty's article at CIO

Related Articles:
Clearing the fog on desktop virtualization
Some see growing potential in desktop virtualization
VMware ups the ante with vSphere 4.1
Red Hat CEO: VMware is biggest competitor