September 15th, 2008
Desktone, Wyse bring Flash content to desktop virtualization delivery
Desktone hopes to overcome two major roadblocks to the adoption of virtual desktop infrastructure (VDI) with today’s announcement of a partnership that will bring rich media to virtual desktops and a try-before-you-buy program.
In a bid to bring a multimedia support to thin clients, Desktone of Chelmsford, Mass., and Wyse Technology, San Jose, Calif., announced at WMworld in Las Vegas that they are integrating Desktone dtFlash with Wyse TCX Multimedia, allowing companies to use Flash in a virtual desktop environment to think client devices.
Adobe’s Flash technology is becoming more widespread for enterprises and consumers today, for video and rich Internet application interfaces alike. A lack of Flash support on thin clients and for applications and desktops delivery via VDI has potentially delayed adoption of desktop virtualization.
Word has it that Citrix will also offer Flash support for its VDI offerings before the end of the year. It’s essential that VDI providers knock down each and every excuse not to use them, to do everything that full-running PCs do, only from the servers. Flash is a big item to fix.
Introduced last year, Wyse TCX Multimedia delivers rich PC-quality multimedia to virtual desktop users. It works with the RDP and ICA protocols that connect the virtual machines on the server to the client, accelerating and balancing workload to display rich multimedia on the client, often offloading the task from the server entirely.
Desktone dtFlash, introduced today, resides in the host virtual machine and acts as the interface between the Flash player and Wyse TCX. Together they allow users to run wide-ranging multimedia applications, including Flash, on their virtual desktops.
Another roadblock to virtualization is that many companies are hesitant to move to VDI because it requires substantial commitment of resources, and the companies are unsure of the benefits. To overcome this hesitancy, Desktone also announced a Desktop as a Service (DaaS) Pilot that will allow companies to explore the benefits of virtualization without having to build the environment themselves.
With pricing for the pilot starting at $7,500, enterprises use their own images and applications in a proof-of-concept that includes up to 50 virtual desktops. Desktone uses its proven DaaS best practices to jump-start the pilot, enabling customers to quickly ramp up. The physical infrastructure for this 30-day pilot is hosted by HP Flexible Computing Services, one of Desktone’s service provider partners.
This news joins last week’s moves by SIMtone to bring more virtualization services to cloud providers. Citrix today also has some big news on moving its solutions to a cloud provider value.
Dana Gardner is principal analyst of Interarbor Solutions. For disclosures on Dana's industry affiliations, click here or to view his full profile click here.
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