Webphone on VDI: Citrix, VMWare and Azure Virtual Desktop Comparison

As remote working becomes more popular, virtual desktop solutions gain bigger market share. One of the features for remote users is to have audio and video communications using MS Teams, Zoom, Cisco Webex, or similar. Here you can fine how virtual desktop solutions support webphones, the pros and cons of each platform.

How It Works

Virtual desktop solutions offer web redirection features for real-time applications such as MS Teams, Zoom, and similar WebRTC-based applications. Real-time traffic goes directly from the user’s PC web browser to the real-time application server and avoids a virtual desktop environment.

Azure Virtual Desktop

Azure Virtual Desktop is the only solution today that doesn’t need any browser plugin or software application installed on user PCs. Microsoft has worked with Google Chrome and helped MS Edge and Chrome browsers to do multimedia redirection without any plugins or extensions needed on user PCs.

Citrix UC SDK

Citrix is the market leader in virtual desktop environments. Citrix solutions for WebRTC require Chrome plugins or alternative software installations on user PCs. Citrix offers UC SDK to make softphone applications support multimedia redirection.

VMWare Horizon

With the dominance in the server virtualization market, VMWare also has a footprint on the virtual desktop market with VMWare Horizon. This solution also requires a Chrome plugin for multimedia redirection.

AWS Workspaces is currently using VMWare Horizon technology.

Comstice WebPhone

Comstice offers an alternative where it provides a standalone webphone and converts the WebRTC traffic into SIP protocol. You can integrate web audio and video sessions into your existing Cisco or Avaya environments using SIP. You can run this solution on your network or private cloud for full data privacy. Comstice Webphone does not require any plugins and is not dependent on any other service such as MS Teams or Zoom.

Conclusion

Virtual desktop solutions will gain even more traction once multimedia redirection features become easier to use by avoiding any plugins. Comstice Webphone does not require any plugins today and offers many use cases for real-time communications using multimedia redirection.