VMware's New Products in the End-User Computing Portfolio

At VMworld 2013 Europe, VMware introduced new product offerings and capabilities across its end-user computing product portfolio to broaden support for the mobile workforce. With a focus on lowering cost, simplifying management and enhancing performance to help organizations and the industry advance workforce mobility, VMware is the only company that offers customers an end-to-end virtualization solution for the mobile and social cloud era. "The innovations we are introducing around cost, management and performance of our products make a compelling case to companies searching for a modern approach to supporting their mobile workforces," said Sanjay Poonen, executive vice president and general manager, End-User Computing, VMware. "We believe customers get the best technology, practical innovations, superior customer support and the most value from VMware compared to our competitors."

Building Upon the Industry's Most Comprehensive Platform for the Mobile Workforce VMware Horizon TMSuite is an integrated platform that supports the mobile workforce by connecting end-users to their data, applications and desktops using any device without sacrificing IT security and control. It brings together Horizon View TM, Horizon Mirage TM and Horizon Workspace TM to create a single, unified solution designed to transform technology silos into centralized IT services that can be easily provisioned, managed and delivered to end-users. Updates to VMware Horizon Suite include: VMware Horizon View 5.3 - will offer an improved user experience, streamlined management, reduced total cost of ownership (TCO), and a new route to market for virtual desktops.

Improved user experience - Horizon View virtual desktops will offer a true workstation replacement option with workstation class 3D graphics using Virtual Dedicated Graphics Acceleration (vDGA) enabled by NVIDIA® GRIDTM technology to support high-performance graphics and compute workloads, such as those required by the design, manufacturing, and oil and gas industries. Bandwidth consumption will be lowered through the use of multimedia redirection of H.264 advanced video coding for high-definition content, and efficiency improvements to the Horizon View client for Linux offers users an enhanced experience. Improvements to remote desktops delivered through HTML5 capable web browsers will offer higher quality video playback, faster typing response, and higher scalability, with support for up to 250 concurrent connections. Additionally, support will be available for the latest end-user technologies, including Windows 8.1, Apple iOS 7 and Google Chromebooks.

Streamlined management and cost - New VMware Virtual SAN TMfor Horizon View beta will deliver significantly lower upfront capital expense (CAPEX) and total cost of ownership (TCO) for virtual desktop infrastructure (VDI). The bundling of VMware vCenterTM Operations ManagerTM for View in Horizon Suite, available at no additional cost, offers advanced VDI performance and operations management for large-scale virtual desktop production monitoring, advanced problem warning, faster time to resolution and complete infrastructure coverage.

Support for new delivery models - New Horizon View Agent Direct-Connection TMis an optional plugin that will allow for secure remote connections to a virtual desktop even if the Horizon View connection server is unavailable, offering more flexibility for remote offices, branch offices and desktop-as-a-service (DaaS) deployments. In addition, support for Windows Server 2008 R2 as a desktop operating system in Horizon View for public and private cloud deployments will reduce the costs and complexities related to Microsoft Virtual Desktop Access (VDA) subscription fees and will enable DaaS service providers to share server hardware between tenants and directly offer Windows licensing choices.

VMware Horizon Mirage 4.3 - Integrates with Horizon View to enable IT to use image layering to manage both physical and virtual desktops at scale, while also offering enhanced Windows 7 migration and web management capabilities.

Integrated approach for physical and virtual desktops - Horizon Mirage combines with Horizon View to give IT administrators greater flexibility and performance in managing mobile and distributed desktops for different user groups within an organization. The integrated solution will enable IT to install and update base and application layers to full clone virtual machines in persistent desktop pools similar to physical PCs. IT can update base and application layers on virtual machines without affecting user-installed applications and data.

Enhanced Windows 7 migration - Horizon Mirage will support the two most common approaches to Windows 7 migrations: in-place operating system migration and hardware refresh. The ability to stage multiple application layers with the base layer will enable IT to reduce user downtime and costs, and deploy applications to endpoints faster.

Improved management using Web management console - More IT operations will be able to be conducted through the Web management console with the addition of the new protection manager role that helps IT manage mobile and distributed PCs from a single pane of glass, providing information such as endpoint centralization status, trends, and errors in a dashboard view. The Protection Manager can edit and upload policies, build collections, and restore endpoints, in addition to other administrative capabilities. VMware Horizon Workspace - Sony smartphones will join the growing list of VMware ReadyTM devices that help IT administrators improve their enterprise mobile management strategy and support bring your own device (BYOD) policies.

According to a June 2013 forecast by industry research firm, IDC, the worldwide enterprise social software applications market revenue is expected to grow from $1.0 billion in 2012 to $2.7 billion by 2017 which represents an aggressive compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 22.3 percent . New capabilities in Socialcast will offer additional ways for companies to improve collaboration and communication to collectively achieve organizational goals. VMware Socialcast® - New integrated feature will introduce a better approach to the collection and management of ideas in large organizations, helping troubleshoot problems and improve organizational performance. Availability Updates to VMware Horizon Suite, Socialcast, ThinApp® and VMware Ready smartphones are expected to be available in Q4 2013. The public beta of VMware Virtual SAN for Horizon View is available immediately through the VMware website.