VMware sends mixed message with View 4.6

When VMware first announced that it was going to license Teradici’s PCoIP protocol for inclusion in View 4.0, its most visible shortcoming was that VMware did not plan to update the View Security Server at the same time. Setting aside any debate as to the performance characteristics of PCoIP on the WAN, the lack of support for the View Security Server was a significant obstacle to widespread adoption of View in enterprise environments. So the inclusion of direct support for PCoIP tunneling through the View 4.6 Security Server comes as a most welcome update. Also included with View 4.6 are new USB enhancements, as well as support for Windows 7 SP1.

Microsoft Windows Thin PC – a solution only a mother could love

Attached as a footnote to last week’s big news of Windows 7 SP1 being released to manufacture, Microsoft also announced a new lightweight edition of Windows 7. Windows Thin PC (WinTPC) is in many respects a Windows 7-based update of Windows Fundamentals for Legacy PCs (WinFLP), a lightweight locked down version of Windows XP SP3 that was offered to enterprise customers as an encouragement to get them to migrate away from Windows 2000 without the cost of performing a hardware refresh at the same time.

Microsoft Windows MultiPoint Server 2011

MultiPoint Server is the Cinderella of the Windows world, locked away in the cellar education sector, kept away from the bright lights of publicity and severely limited in what it could offer. But that could well be changing given Microsoft’s recent efforts to revamp the product. Although not yet quite ready for shipping, Microsoft has been working hard to add value to MultiPoint Server and when it ships in March it looks like Microsoft might have a winner on its hands.

Mobile malware reinforces need for mobile hypervisors

At last year’s VMworld in San Francisco Stephen Deasy (Director, R&D, VMware) and Srinivas Krishnamurti (Senior Director, Mobile Solutions, VMware) announced VMware’s plans for a type II mobile hypervisor platform. Three months later VMware and LG have announced a partnership to install VMware Mobile Virtualization Platform (MVP) on LG smart phones starting in 2011. While significant questions remain about the viability of this partnership, the need for a mobile virtualization solution cannot be stressed enough.

Mirage 2.0 extends Wanova vision to the enterprise

Wanova has today announced general availability of Mirage 2.0, the newest release of its distributed desktop virtualization platform. Mirage 2.0 is a significant milestone for Wanova, extending the platform from a limited scalability solution better suited to LAN-based deployments to a true enterprise class platform capable of supporting multiple remote branch offices without requiring a either high capacity WAN links or a WAN acceleration appliances.

Ericom welcomes the desktop virtualization year with new release

Ericom has has won the race to deliver the first new product release of the “Year of Desktop Virtualization” with the launch of Ericom PowerTerm WebConnect 5.7.

WebConnect (sorry Ericom, but “PowerTerm WebConnect 5.7” takes too much space on the page to type out every time) is Ericom’s answer to Citrix XenApp and XenDesktop, plus or minus a few bells and whistles. On the plus side WebConnect includes mainframe and midrange terminal emulation software to provide access to legacy systems, as well as offering support for mixed environments consisting of servers running Windows Server 2003, 2008, 2008 R2 grouped together in a single farm, and manages to do all this with a single product where Citrix still requires two.