By Kathy Gibson in Barcelona – Mobile workers are increasingly using a variety of devices to access their applications and data – from PCs and laptops to tablets and smartphones; even smart cars and machines that haven’t been thought of yet will soon be used as access devices.
As it drives the software-defined data centre, which will allow companies to deploy their applications across the board, VMware will start deploying its technology on all the devices within the infrastructure.
“The picture that we hope to give is moving from a tightly-coupled client/server world to a loosely-coupled cloud world,” says VMware CEO Pat Gelsinger.
“We see ourselves as the virtual infrastructure provider for the data centre as well as on the multiple devices. This would include mobile management and app management. This is very significantly what we are doing and where we are moving.”
President and chief operating officer Carl Eschenbach adds that, over time, VMware will become more prominent in the mobile management space.
“You will see us getting much more into the mobile content management and app management areas in the future.”
At VMWorld, the company announced a number of products and initiatives that will help to drive its vision of offering customer an end-to-end virtualisation 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,” says Sanjay Poonen, executive VP and GM: end-user computing at VMware.
“We believe customers get the best technology, practical innovations, superior customer support and the most value from VMware compared to our competitors.”
VMware Horizon Suite 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, Horizon Mirage and Horizon Workspace to create a single, unified solution designed to transform technology silos into centralised IT services that can be easily provisioned, managed and delivered to end-users.
New 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.
* 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.
* VMware Horizon Workspace – Sony smartphones will join the growing list of VMware Ready devices that help IT administrators improve their enterprise mobile management strategy and support bring your own device (BYOD) policies.
Social collaboration continues to gain ground among enterprises as companies leverage social components made popular by consumer applications and use them to enhance collaboration among teams and large communities.
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-billion in 2012 to $2,7-billion by 2017 which represents an aggressive compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 22,3%.
New capabilities in Socialcast will offer additional ways for companies to improve collaboration and communication to collectively achieve organisational goals.
VMware Socialcast is a newew integrated feature will introduce a better approach to the collection and management of ideas in large organisations, helping troubleshoot problems and improve organisational performance.
Meanwhile Socialcast Challenges offers an ideation workspace that will provide organisations with a simple and social way to turn ideas into action. Unlike specialised or add-on ideation tools, Socialcast Challenges is designed as an integral part of an organisation’s Socialcast community, giving employees a powerful way to brainstorm, prioritise actions, and solve problems collaboratively.
By providing a structured way to tap into an organisation’s collective wisdom, Socialcast Challenges will help improve business outcomes.
Also supporting its end-user computing initiatives, VMware yesterday announced that it has acquired Desktone, an industry leader in desktop as a service (DaaS) with an advanced multi-tenant desktop virtualisation platform for delivering Windows desktops and applications as a cloud service.
“Desktone is a leader in desktop-as-a-service and has a complete and proven blueprint for enabling service providers to deliver DaaS,” says Poonen. “By bringing Desktone’s innovative platform in house, VMware can accelerate the delivery of DaaS through its network of over 11 000 VMware service provider partners while helping to shape and lead the future of the industry.”