VMware's desktop moves

VMware made a "cluster announcement" of a number of products and services related to desktop virtualization including VMware View 4, PCoIP Support, a partnership with Affiliated Computer Services and the availability of a set of new reference architectures. It is clear that VMware wants to make adoption of their version of desktop virtualization, whether supported locally or via cloud computing, easy.

Here are VMware's comments about their announcement

• View 4: VMware is announcing VMware View 4, enabling rapid adoption of virtualized desktops and establishing the desktop as a managed service model. VMware View 4 is the industry’s only purpose-build desktop virtualization solution, setting a new quality, cost and scale standard for desktop virtualization, eliminating critical barriers that have restricted adoption of desktop virtualization. VMware View 4, built on the vSphere virtualization platform, and leveraging a broad partner ecosystem: 1) Provides the highest quality end-user experience across all major end-user models; 2) Delivers reliable, secure, available desktops due to a unique expertise in large-scale distributed computing environments; 3) Provides rich management capabilities; and 4) Leverages VMware’s broad partner ecosystem to deliver a high performance, cost-effective end-to-end solution.
• PCoIP Support: In conjunction with the View 4 introduction, VMware will also announce broad ecosystem support of the Teradici PC-over-IP® (PCoIP®) protocol delivered in VMware View™ 4. The ecosystem press release is pasted below. And for reference, an info guide on PCoIP can be found here.
• System Integrator Partnership with ACS: VMware is also announcing a partnership with ACS (Affiliated Computer Services) - ACS will be providing a more cost-effective way to deliver desktop managed services for its clients through a partnership with VMware. As part of the agreement, ACS will now standardize the deployment of VMware View at all of its customer datacenters around the world in order to help customers avoid the capital costs, time and IT resources required to build a virtual desktop solution from scratch.
• Reference Architectures: VMware View takes advantage of unique optimization at the CPU, hardware, server and network levels to drive the highest performance, highest quality solutions. In concert with key ecosystem partners, VMware has also provided reference architectures – blueprints showing best practices for deploying virtualized desktops, for VMware View 4. Published RAs can be found here with more to be posted in the coming weeks.

Snapshot analysis

VMware is facing strong competition from Citrix, Microsoft and several others in the area of desktop virtualization. By offering products to support this approach, reference architectures to demonstrate "how this is done," and putting forward a partner having expertise in the area, VMware is hoping to establish dominance and slow the growth of its competitors.

This broad approach has a track record of working in the market. I have no doubt that it will work again for VMware.