Trying DaaS on my iPad — it really does rock

This is my iPad running the free Citrix Receiver application, which in turn is connected into my demo account on the CyberlinkASP / Rackspace DaaS service. I’ve been trying it out over the past few days and I have to say, the concept of DaaS (“Desktop as a Service”) really does appeal. The ability to ‘get’ to your desktop immediately, from anywhere, from any device, would seriously increase my productivity. All too often, the native applications on, say, the iPad, iPhone or BlackBerry just aren’t-quite-good-enough to get many jobs done quickly.

Of course, Citrix is nothing new — it’s been around for a long time — what’s new, here, is that this demo desktop is running out a data centre in the Docklands area of London, which means it’s ridiculously fast and ridiculously responsive. Plus the desktop is running on a dedicated blade server that just SCREAMS through the standard desktop applications. Word, Excel, and so on, they all start up in what feels like a few miliseconds. I particularly like the ability to return to my virtual desktop and find it sitting there precisely as I left it. I like the fact it’s online all the time!