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by
Gabe Knuth
Last week, I wrote a rundown of Citrix's product line as of 2009, which was the third in a series of articles stretching back to 2007. I decided it was worth doing the same for the rest of the "Big 5", which consists of Citrix, Symantec, Quest, VMware, and Microsoft, in no particular order.
Since I was dreading tracing back the lineage of Symantec's products, I decided to do them this week. It turns out that it wasn't so bad as long as I confined myself to Symantec's Endpoint Virtualization line of products. Earlier this year, Brian wrote about each individual product in the Endpoint Virtualization group, so today we'll just take a brief look at each one. After that, there's another chart that shows how the Endpoint Virtualization Suite got to where it is today, with roots going all the way back to 1999.
Product Groups
Holy smokes, talk about information overload! There's so many product groups at Symantec it can make you dizzy. The one that we care about today, however, is the Endpoint Virtualization group, which was created in early 2009. The Endpoint Virtualization group is comprised of many products, each of them licensed or acquired by Symantec over the years.
Endpoint Virtualization
Workspace Corporate/Remote
Symantec Workspace Corporate/Remote is built on the desktop broker technology they acquired from nSuite in 2008. nSuite was known mostly in the medical field for most of it's time, and has been offering the solution that would eventually become Workspace Corporate/Remote since 2002.
Workspace Profiles
Symantec Workspace Profiles is an OEM'd version of RTO's Virtual Profiles. You can read more about the OEM relationship here, and you can see the RTO version in action on BMTV Episode 16. The RTO Virtual Profiles is such a solid product that it's also being OEM'd by VMware, but is not yet available as part of VMware View.
Workspace Virtualization
Symantec Workspace Virtualization is built on the client provisioning and isolation technology they acquired from Altiris in 2007. The Altiris SVS product has been around for some time, and enabled application virtualization on the client side. What it lacked, however, was streaming capabilities. So, after finishing the Altiris acquisition, Symantec formed a strong partnership with AppStream, whose sole purpose was to stream applications. I think AppStream/Altiris even shared a booth at BriForum.
Workspace Streaming
Symantec Workspace Streaming came from the AppStream acquisition in 2008. With the AppStream/Altiris partnership already in place and working well, it was a no-brainer to bring AppStream into the Symantec fold. Workspace Streaming combined with Workspace Virtualization gives them a complete application virtualization and streaming solution.
Endpoint Virtualization Suite
The culmination of all these acquisitions and licensing agreements is the Endpoint Virtualization Suite. Workspace Corporate/Remote will get the users connected to the desktops, Workspace Virtualization and Workspace Streaming take care of getting the applications to that desktop, and Workspace Profiles handles the user environment. Remember, for a complete rundown of the suite, check our Brian's article from March, 2009, entitled "The lowdown on Symantec’s entry into the desktop virtualization space: Symantec Workspace Virtualization 6.1"
The Chart
This chart, while much smaller than Citrix's chart, presented a challenge in tracking down the past iterations of the products. Perhaps the most interesting thing I learned, though, is that AppStream has been around since 1999! That means that they even beat SoftwareWow (predecessors of Softricity SoftGrid, which is now App-V), at least in terms of Archive.org web presence (visit the WayBack Machine: SoftwareWow, AppStream). One thing we can tell for sure is that even though none of the products in the Endpoint Virtualization Suite are home-grown, Symantec built the solution by acquiring companies with established products and good reputations.
The problem with a rundown like this is that I'm pretty sure I'm leaving off stuff that Symantec would feel also belongs in the conversation. It's hard to find those things, though, because A) the solution is very young, and B) there is a LOT of stuff that Symantec does. So, if there are other technologies from Symantec that should be in here, let me know in the comments.
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