VMware quietly mentioned that it was ending the availability of it’s VMware ACE product on December 31, 2011. No big announcement has been made. VMware is being good enough to continue to support the product for a time, but is not offering a substitute product. MokaFive, however, is rushing to the aide of those customers by offering its product, a product that offers a super set of VMware ACE functions, at a drastic discount.
Here’s what MokaFive has to say about this program
MokaFive, known for its innovative desktop-management solutions, announced today that it is providing an alternative to VMware ACE- a product that is being discontinued at the end of the year - at a 75 percent discount off of MokaFive Suite’s list price.
While VMware plans to continue support for ACE through 2013, the company has announced it will discontinue the sale of new licenses. For a limited time and to help fill the void, MokaFive is offering its award-winning virtual-desktop-management solution to current VMware ACE customers for just $38/seat/year.
MokaFive Suite offers features and functionality similar to VMware ACE, with added benefits that include cross-platform support, the ability to self-recover from failures and the capability to update images unobtrusively in the background. VMware ACE users can be up and running on MokaFive within a matter of minutes. New users can be added at the same price for as long as customers continue to use the product.
MokaFive takes a client-side virtualization approach that runs locally- boosting performance and enabling offline access. Since the product encapsulates the corporate-computing environment in a secure, portable “bubble,” it can run on any type of machine-Macs, PCs, desktops, laptops, corporate-owned machines . . . even computers owned by employees or contractors- without sacrificing security or control.
Snapshot analysis
Products are brought to “end of life” status for quite a number of reasons. One typical reason is that sales of a product might have dramatically dropped making ongoing support not economically viable. Another is that another product is being offered that offers better capabilities, lower cost of ownership and keeping the other product around doesn’t make business sense.
In this case, VMware has offered a statement laying out its thinking:
“While a small number of customers found value using VMware ACE, the product did not meet the needs of a broader market. The customer demand for ACE no longer justifies VMware’s continued investment in product development, testing and technical support.”
It is very fortunate for this “small number of customers” that MokaFive offers nearly the same capabilities and has the good heart to offer these customers a holiday gift — a reasonably priced alternative. Whats even better is that VMware ACE users can simply drop the ACE images into MokaFive. MokaFive does all the rest.
I’m sure the VMware ACE users who were surprised by VMware’s sudden move will be happy to learn that the Grinch hasn’t stolen the holiday from them.
