At VMworld 2014 in San Francisco, Sumit Dhawan, Senior Vice President & GM End User Computing of VMware, met with me about VMware’s latest announcements in the areas of desktop and mobile computing. Sumit talked with me about some of the exciting new announcements and acquisitions that VMware has made. He explained how the consumer experience on mobile devices has really transformed the way that IT needs to deliver applications. End users expect a seamless app store type of experience, and simple desktop virtualization or VDI where you attempt to lift and shift desktop images simply can’t cope with these issues.
Some of the announcements and acquisitions that Sumit shared with me include:
- VMware Acquired AirWatch – A provider of Mobile Device Management (MDM) software and software for managing content, applications and email. AirWatch enables secure content collaboration. You can get to your data from all devices that you may see. IT creates a shared repository for the shared documents. The owner of those documents stays in control and can delete them at any time.
- VMWare Acquired CloudVolumes – CloudVolumes provides a fast and fluid just-in-time application delivery. It begins with the creation of a VM clone. Then that clone attaches to the applications that the user is authorized to. There is no need to stream the applications as the clone simply attaches to the storage where the applications are installed. The entire creation of a new desktop with customized applications takes only a few seconds.
- VMware announced VMware Workspace Suite – VMware Workspace Suite delivers a single, virtual workspace that unifies the end user experience for mobile, desktop, and data. Workspace Suite offers a single integrated portal to access AirWatch and VMware Horizon. The Workspace Suite offers seamless single sign-on for web, SaaS, and Windows applications.
- Updates to VMware Horizon – VMware’s Horizon desktop virtualization product has also had several enhancements. It will support just-in-time application delivery with CloudVolumes. A collaboration with Google and NVIDIA will deliver high performance rich graphics on Chromebooks using NVIDIA GRID virtual GPUs (vGPU) from the server and NVIDIA Tegra K1 processors on Chromebooks. VMware Horizon DaaS will offer Applcations-as-a-Service where published applications, shared desktop sessions, and full virtual desktops will be delivered via a multi-tenant public cloud.
Sumit pointed out that VMware’s mobile and desktop strategy will help businesses deliver IT as a service and deliver the kind of experiences that today’s end users expect and require.
