Matthew Weinberger

August 31, 2011

2 Min Read
VMware Horizon Extends Management to Windows, Mobile Apps

In a little more cloud chatter out of this week’s VMworld conference, VMware announced that the VMware Horizon “identity, policy and entitlement engine” will be extended to virtualized Microsoft Windows applications and connected mobile workspaces. The goal, VMware said, is to provide “an open, user-centric platform for delivery of different application types within a unified application catalog from a wide range of devices.”

There are two components to the VMware Horizon announcement, according to the press release:

  • VMware Horizon Application Manager: Based on VMware ThinApp application virtualization technology, the new application manager offers a centralized console to  “manage access, deployment and updates to virtual Windows applications independent from device type and the underlying operating system.” A beta will be available by year’s end, VMware said. The overall goal here seems to be collapsing multiple enterprise identity silos into a single, cloud-manageable ID.

  • VMware Horizon Mobile: Essentially, this app will provide enterprises a way to establish and manage for their employees a mobile workspace, discrete from their personal smartphone interface, and all done over the air. In plain English: one Android device can be used for both work and play. On paper, it sounds a lot like the Juniper Junos Pulse solution. It’s going to be available from “LG, Samsung and other smartphone/tablet manufacturers in the coming months.”

VMware promised in that same press release that this is only a taste of things to come:

“Future releases of VMware Horizon will marry the management of existing Windows applications via application virtualization and publishing technologies from Citrix, Microsoft and VMware, with the management of mobile and cloud-based applications.”

On a final note, VMware also showed off a product code-named AppBlast that can be used with VMware View 5 to deliver a secure enterprise cloud service. The “service” in question? Delivering any Windows application on-demand to any HTML5-capable Web Browser. Definitely stay tuned for more details on AppBlast as they arise.

And in the meanwhile, my colleague Dave Courbanou over at The VAR Guy is providing regular coverage of the rest of the announcements, so take a look.

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