Citrix and VMware face-off over client hypervisors

Last month at VMworld, VMware took a major step forward in its desktop virtualization vision with the introduction of View 4.5. On hand for the launch was Gartner Research Vice President Chris Wolf who confirmed that View 4.5’s improved scalability coupled with the addition of role-based delegated administration change auditing features and the ability to support Windows 7 meant that View 4.5 joined Citrix XenDesktop 4.0 in fulfilling Gartner’s requirements for an enterprise-class server hosted virtual desktop platform. Although, View 4.5 is more notable for a feature that is not required to obtain Gartner’s blessing.

Quest and Virtual Computer to take on Citrix XenDesktop and VMware View

Desktop virtualization often focuses on solutions provided by Citrix and VMware. Quest’s vWorkspace is an enterprise ready solution and its partnering with the likes of Virtual Computer offer customers looking to reduce the cost and simplify their desktop service implementation.

VMware, Novell and the CVP

There has been a lot of noise about a negotiations between VMware and Novell, rumors are that it regards the purchase of the SUSE division, now firstly every thing that follows is pure supposition on my part, I have no insider knowledge. now mike has put forward one argument on why a VMware purchase of Novell SUSE assets make very good corporate sense. However I put another idea into the fray.

VMware vShield 4.1, not for the SMB

I wonder how many of us remember when VMware bought BlueLane and their technology, good things were promised, we saw the first part with the release of vSphere when they introduced vShield Zones. This was a “Free” product for those of you that had any version above Advanced vSphere and to be fair for a 1.0 release was a nice weapon to have in your armoury when dealing with the Security during a design and implementation phase.

At VMworld 2010 San Francisco VMware announced and released the expanded and improved vShield family of products. it however now a costed product, now the good news is that vShield Zones been not been removed from the vSphere suite, and are still “Free” the the correctly licensed level of vSphere.

VMware positions for the future around vFabric and vCloud

Looking in from 5000 miles (no I didn’t make it to VMworld this year), the two most significant announcements involved the consolidation of VMware’s bulging product lines into clearly-defined vFabric and vCloud strategies, which are respectively PaaS and IaaS plays that compete feature-wise with the established market leaders.