Does Propalms have a future?, in the Other SBC Products forum on BrianMadden.com

Can anyone tell me what is happening with Propalms? We have been very happy with its performance and ease of management.

I have learnt that they have been sold again. While we love using the software we are starting to have doubts about their ability to survive in a competitive market.

If they don't start communicating with their customers they are going to lose them. We are starting to plan for a migration to Citrix despite its higher cost and complexity.

Not sure about Proplams future, but have you thought about the other Citrix alternatives such as Ericom's PowerTerm WebConnect RemoteView.

The only feature competitive alternative to Citrix Presentation Server is Provision Management Framework Enterprise. Ericom is a nice product but is missing some core components, which it's trying to fill by allying themselves with other technology vendors, i.e. AEP and triCerat.

Provision Networks is a terminal server add-on suite similar to Citrix Presentation Server in that it offers the following features, but costs only $99 per concurrent user:

Application/Content/Desktop Publishing
Seamless Windows/Session Sharing/Desktop Integration
Intelligent Load Balancing
Web Interface
SSL Gateway
Support for Non Win32 RDP Clients
Universal Printer Driver ***
Profile Management ***
Desktop Management/Lockdown ***
Per-Session Firewall Rules Engine ***
Time Zone Support
CPU and Memory Performance Management ***
File System and Registry Redirection for Enhanced Application
Compatibility ***
USB Handheld Sync (Palm, Blackberry & PocketPC) ***
Multimonitor Support (to 4098x2048 resolution)
Single Sign-on and 3rd Party Authentication
Virtual IP Support
USB Scanner Support (new)
VMware VDI Broker (includes all of the above features when connecting to
hosted XP Pro desktops) ***
***Items with astrisks are features that are better than the Citrix Feature, or features not provided by Citrix***

Before one of you Citrix people gets in my sh!t about saying anything has better technology than Citrix, remember that many of these features were designed as stand-alone "enhancements" for Citrix, but are now offered as a complete suite. I also work with and evangelize Citrix Products, but am not blind to the fact that there is a viable alternative at a very appealing price. PN even offers license for license migration from competitors @ $50 per license.

I'd be happy to discuss this alternative or Citrix with you if you're not getting warm fuzzies from Propalms.

I spoke with Patrick at a conference in November and mentioned Propalms to him. The sad thing was that he didn't know what Proplams was until I started listing the previous chain of owners. It wasn't bad on his behalf but rather there isn't much marketing, etc. with the product. You would think that at least they would try to work with the terminal server MVP community to showcase their product.

I think Propalms works in many environments and works well. You just have to determine what requirements you have and what solution will fit your needs. The Provision offering looks very attractive as well and it seems like they are making strides in the industry. My recommendation would be to get demos of the products you are interested in and see what fits your needs. Keep your budget in mind, however, at the end of the day you need to be able to have a solid, supported product in place.

That's correct. In the past year I've been contacted by Provision Networks, Citrix, 2X, AEP, Ericom, triCerat... and a handful of smaller startups, but have never received any correspondence from the former Tarantella, Panther Server, HOB, Jetro. I think some of these companies are either comfortable where they are, or their TS Products are not their main business, as they aren't doing any marketing or outreach to speak of in the USA.

I also just saw this item which was posted on http://sbc.vanbragt.net/mambo/news/news-of-22-february-2007.html


http://www.provisionnetworks.com/news/2007/22007_pn_rdp_msft.aspx

Provision Networks press release announced that Microsoft supports the company's efforts to further extend the Provision Networks enterprise feature-set and deliver RDP latency reduction and graphics acceleration - improving audio, video, graphics and multimedia application responsiveness over low bandwidth, high latency connections.