What is User Virtualization and is it worth $70 million?

User Virtualization makes your user’s information manageable and portable. With User Virtualization the components of a desktop relating to the user are decoupled from the operating system and applications. Goldman Sachs investment is not to gain market share per se, but to allow AppSense to rapidly expand to meet the demand that their product has generated and helps drive a rapidly expanding desktop virtualization and management market.

What to look for in a mobile OS if you are serious about desktop virtualization

The phenomenal growth of the tablet market has left many industry analysts scrambling to reassess sales forecasts for both tablets and PCs. Last week Gartner was forced to acknowledge that its previous forecasts were way off the mark when it issued a revised 2011 sales forecast that reduced its November 2011 PC sales growth estimate by a staggering 25%. Gartner research director, Ranjit Atwal, said his company had not fully appreciated the impact that tablet devices were having on the market, and the new figures “reflect marked reductions in expected near-term unit growth based on expectations of weaker consumer demand, due in no small part to growing user interest in media tablets such as the iPad.” Given that this is the same Gartner that in September 2010 instructed CIOs everywhere to go out and buy iPads, it shows just how badly it underestimated the tablet’s impact on the PC market. As tablet sales (and for the moment we can read that as being almost exclusively iPad sales) continue to cut in to sales of PCs and laptops, PC manufacturers are under pressure to offer their own alternatives and IT organizations are under similar pressure to provide ways to integrate tablets into their core service offerings.

Licensing VDI for Microsoft Desktops – is it rocket science?

Given all the past ingenuity and accomplishment why is it, in 2011, the mere task of assigning valid licenses to desktop virtualisation should appear an arcane process?
How do different virtualization models impact how you license your desktop services? What are the current licensing models and do they apply in all instances of desktop virtualisation? Do the models impact on provisioning of services be they laptops, thin clients, Bring Your Own Computer (BYOC), or mobile devices?
Is desktop virtualization licensing an intentionally complex process and what other options could there be?

The Virtual Desktop Design Maxim: Start With User Requirements

When considering a Virtual Desktop Design a good architect needs to ask “what is the best solution for this environment?” For many, once you’ve considered the needs of your users, it is a combination of desktop delivery models – some virtual, some physical. Ideally the user is unaware of which model is being delivered to them, they consume that service on an appropriate device, at an appropriate time. Ringcube perhaps first to market for this type of solution with their Workspace Virtualization Engine.

Mobile Virtual Desktops, Motorola Announce a Nirvana Phone

The Nirvana Phone was intended to enable a user to use their small form factor device when on the move or in the office to access business applications and data by accessing a virtual desktop. Motorola’s ATRIX 4G is being hailed as a device that can enable any road warrior or knowledge worker more mobile and productive with an in-place virtualised desktop environment

Presentation Virtualization, a year in review

Way back in January, when 2010 still had that showroom fresh smell we released Presentation Virtualization Solutions whitepaper; the year wasn’t half way through before that was updated and its being defrosted as we speak to enable updates going into 2011. Its been an eventful year for Presentation Virtualization.