ClearCube VDI Suite

ClearCube recently announced its Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI) Suite. The goal is to increase the power of previous ClearCube offerings and intice others to join the party.

Here's how ClearCube describes its new offering:

ClearCube Technology, the market leader in centralized desktop computing solutions, today announced the Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI) Solutions Suite, a virtual desktop hardware and software solution that manages multiple desktops from a PC blade infrastructure. The VDI Solutions Suite dramatically reduces the cost of centralized computing without sacrificing the security and management benefits of PC blades. The new solution compliments ClearCube's popular 1 to 1 (1:1) PC blade offerings by providing multiple virtual desktops using a single high-performance managed platform.

Numerous organizations in healthcare, financial services and government have deployed ClearCube's PC blade offerings to benefit from the 99.9 percent uptime, reduced management costs, and enhanced security provided by a centralized infrastructure. Many of these enterprise customers are investigating virtual desktops for certain enterprise scenarios, such as for branch banks or remote healthcare specialty facilities, where geographically dispersed users can create significant support costs.

Other organizations are simply looking for more cost effective solutions for a large number of administrative and support staff. With per seat pricing starting at less than $1,000 and technology based on a long track record in centralized computing, ClearCube's VDI Solutions Suite is an attractive option

Snapshot Analysis

ClearCube is an innovative company that offers a number of PC blade-based solutions that  provide organizations with a way to offer the "desktop computing experience" to its staff members without also being forced to provide each and every of them with their own desktop or laptop system.

That being said, ClearCube is not the only supplier that is offering this type of approach. Small suppliers, such as HP and IBM, are also offering similar solutions. Sun offers something akin to this with its Sunray and supporting software for users of Solaris-based solutions. In the face of these very large and able competitors, it appears that ClearCube hopes to define itself has being able to support more desktops per blade (translates to higher levels of efficiency and greater return on an organization's investment) and provide a better and more powerful management solution through the use of VDIworks' Sentry.

I've not had the opportunity to actually speak with a ClearCube user and so, I haven't been able to personally validate what ClearCube says. It does appear from an analysis of the ClearCube architecture, however, that many task-oriented workers, some members of management and some knowledge workers would be very happy with what ClearCube is offering. It is not quite as clear that developers and the "power user" segment of the knowledge worker community would be equally pleased.

ClearCube's approach (as well as those offered by other competitors) doesn't really offer a satisfactory solution for mobile staff members. Those people would still must be provided laptop computers to address their needs for computing and connectivity.

Has your organization implemented this type of solution for its staff members? If so, let me know how it is working.