Search results matching tag 'Client Devices'

Part One: My Shameful Mobility Secret Revealed

James Furbush — Thu, 07 Mar 2013 16:01:00 GMT

About two weeks ago, this lowly consumerization reporter – one that happens to cover enterprise mobility for a living – finally upgraded from an LG Cosmos dumbphone to an iPhone 4S. It's not my first trip to the smartphone rodeo, having previously used an Android device up until a year ago.

A year, however, is an eternity when it comes to mobile devices. Becoming a member of the smartphone club once again, but with a different mobile OS, seemed like a good opportunity to personally dive into the tech segment I cover. I ended up splitting this post into two parts because, holy shit, I had a lot to say and reading 2,500 words on this seemed like a lot to stomach.

Now, it's worth noting that my LG Cosmos was a perfectly acceptable tool for ignoring phone calls, sending texts, setting a reliable alarm clock, and peace of mind if I ever needed to bludgeon someone to death courtesy of the phone's brick-like design. Man, on the other hand, the iPhone 4S actually elicits "ohs" and "ahs" from strangers and family even though everyone supposedly has an iPhone and this specific device was released back in 2011. The hardware is indeed unparalleled and the retina screen impresses me every time I look at it.

In short: yes, the iPhone more or less just works. Yes, I'm able to stay hyper-connected to my digital world. Yes, iTunes Match is probably the greatest $25 you can spend as a music lover with an admittedly ridiculously large music collection. As a platform for applications iOS is superb. However, two weeks in, I'm still not entirely sold on iOS or most of Apple's bundled services.

I want to embrace the iPhone as a productivity tool, but I too often feel guilty that I use the device to mostly delete junk email, scroll through Twitter and Facebook, and play video games when I'm not physically in the office. My device has enough computing power to send someone to the moon for crying out loud and the best I can do with it at the moment is no different than what I do on my laptop. I'm hopeful this will change in due time as I break the device in, but for know I feel like Luke Skywalker trying to harness The Force in 'Empire Strikes Back'. I know the the potential is there, but I'm not sure I know how to unlock it.

The power of the apps side

What I need and want from a smartphone is quick and easy access to the apps and information I need in an organized fashion. That means having one location for all the games and puzzles I play, having another folder for work and productivity things, and another folder for entertainment apps, etc.

It's all about being able to quickly get in and out of apps to get the data I need when I need it. Whether it's checking the weather, email, my calendar or finding a contact I don't want to futz around in the app to get the information I need.

I understand this is also a good argument for constantly updating informational widgets or live tiles on the home screen, but I don't need my phone to double as a stock ticker. I want to control the flow of information and access it on my own terms, rather than have it shoved in my face. This is purely a personal preference and differs for everyone.

Also, battery life is important. I'd rather launch an app for the information I need if it means having the battery last a little bit longer throughout the day. It's a trade-off I'm willing to make because the extra ten-seconds needed to launch an app instead of just having it AVAILABLE NOW isn't the difference between life or death.

As of this writing, I'm mostly relying on the built-in email and calendar app for my TechTarget stuff courtesy of Apple. They're not great, but not terrible. They remind me of a Soviet Cold War-era utilitarian building -- perfectly useful, but it ain't the Bilboa Guggenheim Art Museum, either.

I've heard most people with smartphones have like 80-100 apps on them and use only 15 regularly. I'm a Spartan-type of person where I try to pare down everything in my life to the uncluttered essentials. I don't want to waste intellectual effort deciding what winter coat to wear every morning.

I'll be taking the same approach for my mobile apps. Why use Yelp and Foresquare when just one will do. Why have Rdio, iTunes Match, Pandora, Spotify when iTunes and Rdio meet my needs. With that in mind, here's what apps I am relying on (this could change, but maybe not):

Gmail for my personal email, but hoping to try out Mailbox soon.
Evernote. It's perfect for taking pictures of receipts, organizing notes and files and keeping me organized more than I've ever been.
Dropbox and Box for file syncing, obviously. I have both SkyDrive and Google Drive accounts, but haven't bothered installing those apps yet.
Safari and Chrome are currently battling it out for my browser of choice. Leaning towards Chrome because I'm very Google-centric for my services.
Google Maps has replaced Apple Maps.
The official Facebook and Twitter clients for my social media needs. Facebook's app is good enough to keep, Twitter's client is on the chopping block once I find a replacement.
CloudOn is my Office productivity app at the moment, but let's be real – extended editing of documents on an iPhone is no different than getting a colonoscopy. It's installed merely as an emergency needed type of app.
I'm using a few food-related apps like Chef's Feed, Nara, Epicurious, and Untappd.
Clear is the app I use the most for managing to-do lists. Rise has become my alarm clock app and Solar is my weather app.
Letterpress for smart fun, Infinity Blade for mindless competitive fun.
Timbre for surfacing live music events around Boston.

I'm considering hopping onto the Foursquare and Instagram wagon, but it's also two more social apps I don't have the emotional resources to invest in. I'm considering installing Camera+ to beef up the photo capabilities of the phone.

Oh, sooo that's what a crapplication is?

When Brian Katz crusades against crapplications, I now get it. I no longer have to silently nod my head and pretend I understand what the heck he's talking about. One of the dirty secrets about the tech press is we're encouraged to write about "native apps" as if that indicates the app developer put some extra thought and care into the functionality and design of the app. The phrase "native app" implies that the app in question is not a crapplication. But, it doesn't matter to me as a user how the app was compiled -- whether it be HTML5 or Objective-C or whatever.

What I've come to realize is that the UI and UX paradigm (barf, but it's the best phrase I can come up with) of mobile devices is vastly different from Windows or OSX and matters a whole lot more than the programming language used to write the app. Brian previously wrote about how touch and swipe gestures changes how software should be constructed on a mobile device because it's so different than the interaction a user has with a mouse and keyboard. It's worth revisiting in light of what I'm about to say.

Clear, Rise Solar, and Timbre are exquisite examples of developers building a limited-purpose application that relies strictly on a mobile UI/UX. Those four apps are some of the best computer software I've ever used on any platform because they only use touch and swipe to navigate through the application environment. They are intuitively mobile apps, not just an app on a mobile device. It's an important distinction.

If you use those apps, you're probably nodding your head in agreement. There is a remarkable difference between the UX for Clear and Apple's native task reminder app. Many apps are still designed as if they were simply ported from its desktop version. It sucks. If you design your app like this, do us all a favor and just stop!

For example, CloudOn is practically useless since it crams the Microsoft Office ribbon into a mobile app. Why should I have to pinch and zoom in the app to guarantee my clumsy sausage fingers will tap the functionality I need? Even Gmail, which is one of the better designed email clients, still feels like most of its design cues are ported from the existing web app. Why am I trying to check tiny little boxes to select an email in order to delete it? These apps are so unintuitive and I would argue borderline crapplications.

Conversely, this is why I've come to love Evernote. The designers have managed to create a unique experience for using Evernote on the web versus on a mobile device, but it still feels like a great, cohesive experience regardless of the platform. The Apple's, Google's, and Microsoft's of the world should take heed of this new reality.

Tomorrow, we'll dive into my experience setting up my new iPhone (not as easy as I'd hoped) and have a few comparisons between my experience with Android and iOS.

VMware launches Horizon Suite, but it still has a ways to go to meet expectations. Here's our complete analysis:

Gabe Knuth — Wed, 20 Feb 2013 13:01:00 GMT

Today, VMware is launching Horizon Suite, which we first learned about at VMworld last fall. Coming out of VMworld, I remember having the impression that despite being let down in the past by announcements that were never seen through to releases, VMware might still "get it" when it comes to the big picture of end user computing (EUC). Today's Horizon Suite release represents the marriage of all the EUC technologies and products that VMware has assembled over the years, and is in large part focused on behind-the-scenes things like wiring together the backends and integrating everything together. The primary components of Horizon Suite Horizon View 5.2, Horizon Mirage 4.0, and Horizon Workspace 1.0. Horizon Mobile (for EMM) will also a part of this suite (sometime later in 2013), as are updated mobile Suite-wide mobile clients (which Jack has written about separately). Let's dig into the remaining components:

Horizon View 5.2

Part of today's Horizon Suite release involves renaming the core technologies, so we have a new name and minor version number for VMware View. Now called "Horizon View," the 5.2 release also brings with it the addition of an HTML5 client that leverages VMware's "Blast" protocol. Blast is based on the same technology that runs AppBlast, which we talked about after it was announced at VMworld 2011. AppBlast, for those that don't remember (or have forgotten) was a technology designed to deliver seamless applications from the datacenter via HTML5. It has never been released as an actual product, rather, it was intended to be built into various products that VMware already has.

You'll note that the "App" part of AppBlast has disappeared, and that's because this release only has the ability to deliver full desktops to users rather than seamless applications. VMware says that single application seamless Windows is still their ultimate goal, but that's really hard to do via an HTML5 client and they just wanted to get this technology out there. (I've heard through other channels that the lack of seamless app delivery is because of the way browsers work, namely that browser window borders must be present. Imagine delivering a dozen applications via AppBlast, only to have each one have a browser window around it. That experience is less than optimal, and confusing for users.)

VMware Blast is built a little differently than other HTML5 remote desktop solutions. Rather than using a gateway component to translate or re-encode a remote desktop protocol like other solutions do, Blast was designed from the ground up to deliver pixels straight from within the VM in essentially the same way as PCoIP. This also means the scalability is on par with PCoIP, since little-to-no extra overhead is introduced. Without translation in the way, Blast excels at remoting the desktop itself. Plus, all the traffic runs through the same Horizon Gateway that secures all the other communications between your endpoints and the datacenter.

Disappointingly, there are many limitations that overshadow Blast's great video performance. For instance, there is no multimedia or Flash redirection which would allow the browser to interpret the data natively rather than sending it over the wire. There's also no USB support, no ThinPrint, and no audio support, or no webcam support either. The end result is a protocol that delivers a great looking experience that's not all that usable. Perhaps in a pinch, or in certain situations it will be useful at scale, but ultimately it's behind the curve when compared to more mature HTML5 products from Citrix and Ericom, among others.

A few other aspects of View 5.2 worth noting:

The AppShift technology that we were shown at VMworld is now part of View. AppShift introduces gestures and UI changes that make it easier to use Windows and Windows desktop applications on touch-based devices. If you want to see it in action, Ruben Spruijt recorded a video during the keynote of Daniel Beveridge's demo. This looks pretty cool, and I'm happy to see it make it into the product. I'd be lying if I said I wasn't dubious when it was announced.
View 5.2 finally includes the support for the Nvidia Virtual Graphics Platform that we learned about at VMworld Europe 2011. This will allow for remoting of 3D applications (with the appropriate GPUs in your View servers).
View is SAML-aware now, so when you sign into the Horizon Workspace (more on that later), your credentials are used not only for apps and data, but also to log you into the View desktop.
Microsoft Lync communicator is officially supported via View. (We assume this is via PCoIP only since Blast doesn't do audio.)

Overall impression: AppShift looks cool, Blast is falls way short, SAML integration is nice to have.

Horizon Mirage 4.0

VMware bought Wanova last May, but since then they haven't done anything with the technology. It's still been version 3.0—the version that Wanova had been shipping since 2011. Today's Horizon launch includes a new version of Mirage (now 4.0) along with a name change to "Horizon Mirage."The biggest new feature is that you can now configure layers for single applications. Prior to this release, Mirage could be broken down into three layers—Base, Apps, and User—which were composited together and delivered to an endpoint. The 4.0 update now lets you effectively package applications into their own layers, which you can then deliver based on policies (specific machines, groups, departments, etc.). It gives more flexibility when it comes to managing applications, even letting you deliver ThinApp packages as layers (although I'm not sure why you'd do that).

At this stage, there's still no integration between Mirage and View. Our sources claim it's because Mirage doesn't perform well when used in a View environment. This would make sense, since it was designed for desktops that are notoriously over-powered. Performance hits on a single desktop or laptop would likely go unnoticed, but when concentrated on a VDI host those hits would be multiplied and quickly become noticeable. The official response for VMware confirms this (if you read between the lines):

It remains our goal to fully extend the benefits of Horizon Mirage's image layering technology across both the physical and virtual desktop environments. That being said, it is important to note that Mirage and View were initially conceived with different objectives in mind and so interoperability at the underlying resource level is not yet optimised: some of the dynamics of how our agent uses CPU and Network in a distributed environment may be sub-optimal when deployed on a shared resource like a VDI server.

So this is unfortunate, big time. I was of the opinion that integrating the technology into View would be the first thing done, but that appears to be on the back burner. As it is today, Mirage is VMware's physical desktop solution, meaning that you still have to have separate physical and virtual desktop strategies. Sure, that's how it worked in the past, but they didn't make the change I was hoping to see.

What's interesting is that there is a virtualization play for Mirage, as VMware also views it as a BYOC solution, allowing users to use their own machines at work via a corporate VM, managed by Mirage. In fact, VMware even includes a copy of Fusion Pro (the centrally-managed version of Fusion) with each Mirage license. You might be thinking "That's a Mac product. What about Windows?" We thought that, too. VMware believes the most common BYOC use case one that involves bringing Macs into the workplace, so they've bundled the Mac version of their hypervisor for that specific use case. Perhaps this is because there is no "Pro" version of Workstation that could also be bundled? [UPDATE Feb 25: VMware told us that the Mirage license for Fusion Pro is also valid for VMware player for deploying Mirage-managed VMs to Windows and Linux clients. "But wait," you're thinking, "Isn't VMware Player free already?" We thought that too. Turns out that it was free for non-commercial use, so now with Mirage you're legally allowed to use it for corporate stuff. VMware also asked us to point out that you can use both Fusion and VMware Player for corporate-owned laptops too. It's not just a BYO solution. Noted.]

Overall impression: Just a minor change, frustratingly slow integration since we're near the one year mark after the acquisition.

Horizon Workspace 1.0

The glue that binds the Horizon Suite together is Horizon Workspace, launched today for the first time. Workspace aggregates everything in the suite together into one management and end-user package. From Workspace, users have access to their files via what we once called Horizon Data, their web and SaaS applications via the original Horizon App Manager, and their desktops via Horizon View. Mirage is not integrated into Workspace, but it also doesn't need to be since it's only a physical solution (or Fusion) that's managed via the Mirage management component.

Workspace looks cool, and it appears this is where most of the development work has been focused of late, the bulk of which has been regarding the integration of all the platforms. It had to happen some time, but looking around for killer features doesn't result in much. Accessing the data, apps, and desktops is great, but as you look into each of those you find a few things that you would expect to be there that are not.

The "files" functionality is meant to rival other cloud file sync providers like Box and Dropbox. It could be said that it does too good a job of that, because there's no integration with other file storage solutions outside of Horizon itself. Where other solutions allow you to hook into your local file stores or to other cloud services (thereby letting you leave them in place while still providing sync and access to those files on other devices), Horizon Data exists as its own "all-or-nothing" silo. (We were told that integration with existing file shares, SharePoint, and other cloud-based file sync services are all "design goals.") There is some integration with Office Server that allows users to view Office files through the Horizon Workspace, but they can't be edited. If a user wants to edit a file, they need to either find it via the Horizon Data client on their device (which works like Dropbox), or download it, edit it, and re-upload it into the system.

Another gripe is that desktops you can access through Workspace appear to be limited solely to View desktops despite hearing about XenApp integration for, I believe, two years. Also absent is Teradici Arch integration, but that may be understandable since that's only in Tech Preview at the moment. It would seem to be an easy inclusion, though, since it leverages the View connection broker. Finally, Workspace doesn't have any kind of "open in" intelligence in the web browser. So it can't automatically stream a ThinApp package to your workstation or launch a remote View desktop session if you click on a file that can't be handled by your local client. [UDPATE Feb 20 8:45am, we also confirmed that Workspace can only connect users to View desktops, so too bad if you were using View to broker connections to Remote Desktop Session Hosts.]

Overall impression: You have to start somewhere, and this is it. Hopefully VMware can make the updates fast and furious.

Pricing & Licensing

You can buy the entire Horizon Suite for $300 per named user. That's for a perpetual license, not per-year. That includes View, Mirage, Fusion Pro, and Workspace (SaaS app integration, Horizon Data, etc.) That seems like a really great price for so much and significantly cheaper than everything Citrix bundles together.

You can buy the components individually too. View is $250 per concurrent user on its own, and there's now only one edition of View that includes all the features. (Well, we think it includes all of them. We asked vCenter Operations Manager for View was included since VMware shamefully charged $100 per user(!) extra for that in the past, but VMware didn't get back to us on that.)

Mirage and Workspace can each be had on their own for $150 per named user.

As mentioned in the opening section, this Horizon Suite is ultimately supposed to include the Horizon Mobile (EMM) components, but they're not in there yet and we don't know whether or not that addition will affect the overall price of the suite.

Summary

VMware might understand the space as well as I'd hoped, but it sure looks like they're having trouble executing. These products seem to carry so much potential that has yet to be realized, and it seems like all we do is speculate (and hint) about the cool things that could be done, then wait to see if anything catches on. Perhaps the recent changes within VMware will spur that on, but as it stands VMware has a long way to go to catch up to competitors in a lot of areas. It's pretty bad when you make Citrix look like they can turn on a dime.

Mobile Device Management will simply become "Device Management" as traditional desktop management companies acquire MDM products

Gabe Knuth — Wed, 04 Apr 2012 04:01:00 GMT

We cover a lot of Mobile Device Management (MDM) stuff on ConsumerizeIT.com, but don't delve into it too much here because it tends to revolve around consumer devices and IT's struggle to embrace and manage them. Where MDM comes into desktop virtualization and desktop management, though, is when we can incorporate elements of it into what we do every day. With the trends of tablets and mobile computing, along with the eventuality of not running Windows locally on desktops, MDM will evolve in simply "DM," or Device Management.

Don't get too excited–I'm not saying Windows is going away any time soon, but what I am saying is that as Windows becomes marginalized by thin clients, desktops in the datacenter, tablets, phones, Motorola Atrixes (Atrices?), and so on, we're also going to see fragmentation in how we manage the devices. Companies that focus on managing Windows desktops will be missing out on all these new devices, and we're starting to see them go after MDM technology to broaden their offering. We're starting to see some of this already, with MDM-like features being built in to System Center. Microsoft Management Summit will be interesting this year because of that and because of Windows 8 (Jack will be there, so watch him on twitter @JackMadden). It's only a matter of time before we see more generalized device management features across the board.

Some of that management will amount to app management, too. When Windows 8 comes out, it will have its own app store to go along with Android, iOS, and any corporate app store you might already have. There's three operating systems on umpteen devices that you'll have to manage in one way or another.

We're now starting to see some consolidation going on in the MDM and PC Management areas, most recently with Symantec acquiring both Nukona and Odyssey. Nukona is an application management solution, while Odyssey is an MDM solution. Additionally, Numara Software, who owned the PC management suite TrackIT, purchased Fromdistance, another MDM package, last October. (Both companies were recently swallowed up in an acquisition by BMC Software earlier this year.)

It makes sense that these companies start looking elsewhere for ways to manage new devices. Their bread and butter up until now has been managing Windows, and they're now identifying that, in the future, Windows will be on a smaller percentage of devices. That means that their lifespan is limited unless they can embrace the new way of doing things.

It makes sense for the smaller MDM companies to seek out an acquisition, too. There is a growing sentiment that the best way to deal with devices is to treat them all as insecure, which means you don't need MDM solutions, you need MAM (Mobile Application Management) solutions. If that philosophy takes hold, both MDM and traditional PC management companies have limited lifespans, and they need to prop each other up.

Whatever the emerging ideas are, though, there will be a need to manage both PC's and devices well into the future, and these kinds of pairings make perfect sense. The traditional companies are already entrenched in organizations, and so it’s easier for them to get the MDM technology in front of customers than it is for the new MDM companies to attract clients.

Who’s next on that list? LANDesk? What about vendors? MDM technology could fit well with IBM BigFix (although they already have something) or Dell KACE (Dell just bought Wyse, though, and Wyse has an MDM package). Even Microsoft could be in the game to acquire new technology rather than build it on their own. With so many MDM, MAM, and PC management companies out there, there's sure to be a lot happening in the near future.

Eventually what we’ll end up with are Device Management solutions and Application Management solutions(dropping the word “mobile”) that try to cover all the devices and apps a company might want to manage, rather than separate tools for different devices. It’s going to be a different world, and these companies have to do something to stay afloat. This could be it. The bottom line, though, is that the mobile devices are just going to be folded in with all the other endpoints, and we'll manage them just like we do everything else (if we manage anything at all!).

How HTML5 remote desktop clients work

Gabe Knuth — Fri, 24 Jun 2011 04:01:00 GMT

Earlier this week, I wrote about my initial thoughts on the Chromebook, and I talked a little bit about HTML5 remote desktop clients, specifically AccessNow from Ericom. In the comments, we also heard from the creator of Spark View, Walter Wang. Walter's comment, plus a subsequent phone call with Ericom, helped to shed some light on exactly how Chrome (and other HTML5 compliant browsers, which is all of the big ones now, I think) use HTML5 technologies to show remote desktops. In that article, I speculated that Ericom was somehow wrapping RDP and shipping it to the client. It turns out that what actually is happening is a bit more complex, and it involves translating RDP data for consumption by the browser. Before I get too far ahead, though, let's break this down.

There are two key technologies that enable remote desktop clients within a browser, WebSockets and Canvas. WebSockets is how the remote desktop data is sent from your environment to the browser, and Canvas is the technology that allows it to be redrawn on the screen.

WebSockets is a protocol/API that is built in to all the recent browsers that allows for continuous transmission of data via one TCP socket, as opposed to HTTP, which requires each request to have a response. Multiple requests, then, require multiple connections, which is pretty complex and inefficient for anything that needs to have a realtime feel to it. WebSockets changes this by essentially opening a channel between the client and the server that remains open between requests. The main drawback of WebSockets is that it only supports textual data, not binary data (which is what remote protocols use), which we'll get into later.

Canvas was created by Apple way back in 2004, and has grown into being a native HTML5 element. Canvas enables the ability to control every single pixel discretely through the use of javascript, which allows the browser to render 2d graphics dynamically. When you see animations or games that play in the browser and don't use Flash (i.e. HTML5 games like Angry Birds for Chrome), you're seeing Canvas in action. For remote desktop connections, the client (in this case, mostly a javascript program) consumes the data coming in via WebSockets and draws the desktop on the screen via Canvas.

Right now you may be thinking "Canvas...no binary data support...that's not RDP at all," which is absolutely correct. But if what you're using at the client isn't RDP, then how is this working? The secret there is with a gateway of sorts. Ericom calls this AccessNow Server (which is really just a lightweight service), and Spark View calls it a Spark Gateway. In both cases, these gateways establish an RDP session with the remote host and translate (or re-encode) that binary data into textual data for use with WebSockets. That text data is sent on to the browser where the client interprets that data and draws it on the screen with Canvas.

The entire process looks something like this (click for larger image):

Ericom has also introduced a version of AccessNow that works with VMware View. There's an added step that involves hosting the web client on a View server so that it can take advantage of the View Open Client, which handles authentication and desktop selection before handing the connection off to the AccessNow Server (remember, that's more of a service than a server). Ultimately, they view this as a way to expand endpoint support for VMware View to anything with an HTML5-compliant browser, which will level the playing field with Citrix when it comes to number of client devices supported by the platform.

At this point, AccessNow does not support virtual keyboards like what you would find on iOS or Android devices. It appears that only Spark View supports those types of devices today, although I haven't had a chance to actually look at the product yet. We know Walter reads this blog, though, so maybe he can comment :) Ericom has said that they are close to providing it, they just want to make sure they get it right before releasing the next version.

Since the Citrix HTML5 client hasn't been released yet, I'm not sure how it works. I imagine it has the same basic architecture, though, while utilizing some of Citrix's existing components (web interface, connection broker, NetScaler, etc...). It's my plan to do a HTML5 remote desktop client roundup when Citrix releases theirs, but if that winds up being too far out, I'll do it without them. It's all so new, though, it seems only fair to give it a little more time.

Based on his comment, Walter believes that WebSockets will be amended to include binary data at some point in the future, which may or may not eliminate the need for a gateway in the middle. There's not much doubt, though, that this article will be obsolete in the near future as more advances are made with HTML5 and remote desktop connections. Call it "Job Security," I guess :)

Why Android thin clients will rule

Brian Madden — Tue, 22 Mar 2011 14:40:00 GMT

One of the most exciting things I hope we'll see very soon is thin client devices running Android. I'm not talking about Android netbooks or tablets, rather, I'm interested in an honest-to-goodness legitimate desktop thin client that runs Android:

My initial thought is that Android could replace the custom Linux-based thin client OS that every thin client vendor has. (ThinOS/Blazer for Wyse, ThinPro for HP, etc.) This would be cool for many reasons.

The main reason I like it is because Android is a feature-filled OS that has tons of really great native apps. We already have all the important remoting clients like Citrix Receiver for Android, Wyse PocketCloud for Android, Quest vWorkspace Connector for Android (still in beta), etc. Now imagine if you could have that plus any of the other great native Android apps that could run directly on your device? This would be a great thin client for our slow (but hopeful!) march away from traditional Windows apps in the enterprise.

So if you wanted to use the thin client for "just" a thin client, fine, you can still do that with Android. But if you'd like to use a local browser or a few local apps here and there, you have hundreds of thousands to choose from in the Android Marketplace. And the local browser / local app experience would be light years ahead of what any single thin client vendor could do with their own custom Linux builds.

This would also be great because you could use the same OS and same management structure for all your thin clients, regardless of the vendor, and thin clients could become commodities again (which is where they belong).

Of course the big "catch" here is that today's official Android builds are all for ARM processors (except for a few community projects to port it to x86). That said, there are a few thin clients out there running on ARM processors, and now that Microsoft has announced that Windows 8 will also run on ARM, we'll probably see even more thin clients based on that architecture. There's also talk of official x86 builds of Android from Google (and Intel, of course), although it's unclear how native Android apps would work there since they're all compiled for ARM right now.

So to summarize all the reasons that an Android thin client would be awesome:

One thin client OS that would work on any vendor's thin client
It's an OS with a really great local experience written by a team way bigger than what HP or Wyse can throw at it
You'd have the option for stateful or stateless
You could run the same OS & apps on your phones & tablets.
It's a nice way to continue the migration away from Windows apps
You can leverage local apps which don't require huge backend infrastructures like running Windows in your datacenter does
Tons of native apps

Disadvantages and unresolved questions?

Of course there are a few potential downsides and unresolved questions around an Android thin client.

First is something that Citrix Desktop CTO Harry Labana has talked about, which is that the Android market could potentially fracture, and creating Android for x86 and for device with big screens and mice is very different than Android on a tiny ARM phone. So yeah at first it seems awesome that you could just "use all your native Android apps" on your Android thin client, but I wonder how practical that will be in reality?

And of course the thin client vendors won't actually like this, because if it's done right then we won't have any differentiation between them. Although I guess that's also the case today with Windows-based thin clients, so the thin client vendors could continue to focus on management, security, support, etc.

It's also unclear how important an Android-based thin client would be if all of our apps truly do evolve into standards-compliant HTML5/Java/whatever apps. I mean if that happens, then who cares if the client is Android or not? Might as well just keep Android on the phone and use the Chromium OS for the thin clients.

By the way, it would also be cool if we saw an Apple iOS-based thin client that could run my iPad & iPhone apps today. I guess we're already pretty close to that now that the iOS can power an external display and use a bluetooth keyboard. Too bad there's no mouse support. Actually now that AppleTV runs iOS now, maybe hacking that would make it the ultimate thin client? (And it's only 99 bucks!)

As a final note, I'm sure someone's going to mention something about the Motorola Atrix or some other Nirvana-type device, but with an Android thin client, you wouldn't need it. You could access all the same apps and data from your thin client and keep your phone in your pocket.

So what do you think? Android thin client... yes or no?

VMware releases a native View PC-over-IP client for the Apple iPad

Brian Madden — Wed, 09 Mar 2011 13:00:00 GMT

VMware just announced availability of a PC-over-IP-based View client for the Apple iPad. It's just now become available in the Apple App Store, so I'll be downloading it this week to try out. In the meantime, I was able to sit down with VMware's director of end-user computing clients Pat Lee to get an overview of the client:

(Please visit the site to view this media)

Also check out some screenshots that VMware posted to Flickr.

Highlights of the VMware View client for iPad include:

Available now, for free
This is View client. It's not the Horizon client that VMware showed at VMworld
iPad-only, no iPhone/iPod Touch support
PCoIP only, no RDP support. (Although you can still use Wyse PocketCloud if you want RDP from an iPad to a View environment.)
PCoIP works well, even for YouTube, etc.
Does not support multitasking, so you have to reconnect if you switch to a different app
Supports the new View 4.6 Security Server
Supports two-factor authentication
Supports the iPad 1 and is expected to support the iPad 2 without problems
In the future, VMware will think about View clients for Android, but their belief is the tablet is the proper interface so that's where they'll focus.

Bridget Botelho wrote a story about the View client for the iPad over on SearchVirtualDesktop.com, so check it out for more information.

[UPDATE: Here's a link to the admin guide and release notes for the View client for iPad.]

Citrix's "nirvana" phone is here in the form of the Motorola Atrix. It's awesome, but not nirvana.

Brian Madden — Tue, 11 Jan 2011 05:00:00 GMT

For the past year or so, Citrix’s Chris Fleck has been writing about something he’s calling the “Nirvana Phone.” The Nirvana Phone is not a specific device from a specific handset maker, rather, it’s more of Chris envisioning how some “nirvana” yet-to-be-built phone of the future might be used in the context of enterprise desktops, applications, and mobility. Last week at CES, Motorola announced their "ATRIX" phone, and Chris wrote a new blog post claiming that the "Nirvana Phone is here." But is it really? I'm not so sure...

In this article, I'll talk about what the nirvana phone concept is and why I think it won't have much real impact. Then Citrix's Chris Fleck will share his views that specifically address my concerns. Fun stuff!

What is the Nirvana Phone?

The basic idea is that in the future there will be an “ultimate” phone that will both (1) be useful as a mobile device on its own in the standard mobile ways, and (2) be able to accept a full-size keyboard & mouse and be able to hook up to a standard full-size display, essentially transforming it into a thin client.

The idea is that your Nirvana Phone would contain all the typical phone things like your data, identities, mobile apps, access to your enterprise apps and desktops,contacts, email, etc. Then instead of carrying a laptop with you in addition to your phone, you’d just plug your Nirvana Phone into a keyboard/mouse/display whenever you need to use a real computer. The “hotel cubicles” at companies could provide these basic accessories, as could hotel rooms, conferences, juice bars, etc.

In the Nirvana Phone world, users would still have laptops and desktops for real work, but that the Nirvana Phone would additionally give them the option to travel without their laptops. Ideally the Nirvana Phone would connect directly into a display (via HDMI --> DVI) and either use a USB or Bluetooth keyboard and mouse.

Chris argues that many industry trends will drive the concept, including office hoteling with companies providing displays, LCD TVs with DVI/VGA inputs, hosted virtual desktops, etc.

Why the Nirvana Phone concept won’t matter

As a geek, my initial reaction to Chris’s thoughts fell somewhere between “Hell yeah!” and “I can’t wait!” But the more I think about it, the more I begin to wonder whether the Nirvana Phone concept will actually matter?

(And to clarify, I believe 100% that the Nirvana Phone will happen. I'm just arguing that it won't grow past the "party trick" stage.)

My main argument against it is that the whole docking / connecting process is too cumbersome, and that by the time that's worked out then all displays on the planet will have the capabilities to run HTML5 browsers and will be able to connect to virtual desktops and apps on their own. After all, just about every new TV already has the capabilities to watch YouTube and Netflix videos built-in, so browsers and Citrix Receivers can't be too far behind. (So in essence, the display becomes the thin client, rather than the phone becoming the thin client.)

If thin clients are a commodity, then why does each user need to carry his or her own? For companies providing hotel cubes, why not just pop a thin client in there that's built for full size displays? Why limit yourself to a phone with a lower resolution display and lower horsepower?

And when your phone is docked, how do you use it as a phone? Do you need to use a headset now? Can you be on the phone and have a full screen desktop at the same time? What happens when you want to go to the bathroom? Do you have to undock your phone and then re-dock it when you get back?

And it's not like the phone is going to have your documents on it or anything. (Even if it does, since phones are easy to lose they're not used as anyone's primary storage location. So you can access your data in the cloud from your real thin client just like you can from your phone.)

I guess my point is that a Nirvana Phone might be nice to have, but I don't think anyone will be able to travel without a laptop because of it. And if/when these nirvana devices become fully featured, by that time every screen you'd be able to use the Nirvana device with will have its own inherent ability to do what the nirvana device can do.

By the way, I still think we're waiting for the Nirvana Phone. The ATRIX is cool, but it only outputs 1280x1024.. hardly a resolution for getting real work done.

You know what? If using the Nirvana Phone means that I need to carry around the dock, a mini-HDMI plug, an HDMI-to-DVI adapter, and a bluetooth headset in order to be able to "dock" with a random KVM in a hotel cube, for all that weight / space in my bag, why can't I just carry around a PlugPC thin client? The plugPC is the same size, but it will also give me the ability to have the full featured Citrix Receiver, 1600x1200 resolution, probably a better experience (since it's built to be a thin client), AND I can use my phone like a normal phone.. i.e. I don't have to use it via bluetooth, I can get up and walk around, etc.

Response from Citrix's Chris Fleck

Brian, I agree with much of your commentary and analysis... except for the conclusion. I concur that at some point in the future, many new high-end PC displays will come with embedded CPUs and internet connectivity, just as TVs are starting to appear today. And yes there will be HTML5 and Citrix Receivers available, so from my perspective that will be a great solution.

However I think that scenario is years away, and even when available they will have a premium price. Then consider that the hundreds of millions of legacy VGA/DVI/HDMI PC displays won't be discarded -- they'll be the ones moved to the guest/hotel cubicles. ;-)

The real debate is timing. Given the availability of the ATRIX now, this device plus a new wave of Nirvana phones will fill a large opportunity before the installed base of PC displays are primarily internet-enabled devices.

Regarding the objections:

Docking and connecting is easy, but finding common docks may be a bit of an obstacle. However, cheap HDMI & USB cables are readily available as well as bluetooth keyboards.
How do you make a phone call at the same time? It turns out the ATRIX does support multitasking with Citrix sessions, so you can have your phone docked and use the speakerphone or Bluetooth headset for making calls while working on Citrix sessions (even full screen virtual desktops).
Why carry around a Thin Client capable device? If you are going to carry around a smartphone anyway, why not carry one that does everything ?
Undocking to do something else is painless and completely secure. No need to log off before leaving a public workstation. No need to re-authenticate when you return or move to another station (within session policy limits).
The ATRIX output is "only" 1280x1024, and this may be limiting for a power user at home or the office. But while traveling, this matches most laptop capability. Many power users today have more than one PC. The ATRIX wont replace the primary one, but it could replace the second or third... For me it didn't replace my laptop, but it did replace a thin client I kept on my desk for ancillary access when my primary laptop is busy.
To clarify the comparison to carrying a PlugPC.. (BTW, I am a fan of the PlugPC but don’t see myself carrying it around.) The ATRIX HD dock is not required to carry around, you can optionally plug the HDMI cable directly from the device to the display. The phone screen becomes a trackpad. For extended use, power is available from the USB plug. Yes that’s another cable, but everyone that travels with a smartphone brings a charger & cable. For now a DVI adapter and HDMI cable is a good idea to travel with but for a cost of $10 this could easily be made available at random KVM locations as this solution becomes popular. So the Bluetooth headset is the net add longer term (unless you use one already) assuming the speakerphone is not appropriate. So you could carry around a PlugPC and get better video, but that means carrying that unit, plus you need wired Ethernet access and permissions plus power/USB cable. This could work at some locations but is more limiting than the wireless access from a smartphone that you carry anyway. Plus the assumption is you are buying only the ATRIX, not a smartphone plus PlugPC.

Additional reasons to consider a Nirvana Phone:

Besides the office "hotel cubicle" as mentioned which is a good use case, there are others as well:

For businesses that are buying smart phones PLUS laptops for users who don't need heavy local processing or offline access, why not consider just one device instead? The expense of fully managed laptops today also forces many companies to limit who gets the equipment to certain job roles. The Nirvana Phone could broaden the scope to additional roles as well making employees more productive. Plus this could provide a great disaster recovery solution without providing everyone a laptop as some companies do. The ATRIX laptop dock option also provides additional appeal as a laptop alternative.
For enabling BYOC, the Nirvana Phone could allow safe and controlled access inside a company campus. One objection I have heard about BYOC is IT's concerns about a foreign laptop plugging an Ethernet cable into the RJ-45 jack somewhere inside and spreading a worm. The Nirvana Phone connection is Wireless only and could be limited to a public access WiFi or just the carrier 3G/4G connection.
For travelers only making a presentation, the ability to drive a meeting room projector from a Nirvana Phone would be a welcome option. Even impromptu occasions inside company office meetings, being able to pull-up a slide deck without carrying a laptop around, plug in, and show the latest data is a productivity enhancer.
For safe access at Internet cafes and business center PCs, I use these locations for search and surfing but I don't trust an internet café for banking or anything work-related that a keystroke logger could compromise. If I could just use the display and keyboard with my NirvanaPhone there would be nothing to be concerned over.
Beyond the thin client capability and it being a high-end smartphone, the ATRIX has another great feature: a large display and keyboard access to local Android apps. This means that any local Android app can show up in a window of the ATRIX webtop alongside XenApp sessions. There are many times I would like to do something like see an SMS text on my PC display and respond from my keyboard versus poking the smartphone screen.

And lastly... What's wrong with buying something because it's cool? Tens of Millions of us do it! (even when it doesn't make good phone calls...)

If you haven't seen the Atrix yet, here's a decent overview from CES:

(Please visit the site to view this media)

Video demo of Wanova's offline laptop disk management thing (It's really cool!)

Brian Madden — Mon, 07 Jun 2010 04:56:00 GMT

(Please visit the site to view this media)

It's been almost a year since I first wrote about Wanova, a software startup company whose "Mirage" product (seriously) product is used for managing, updating, patching, etc., laptops in the field. Wanova plays a big role in the whole "offline VDI" or "local desktop virtualization" or whatever you want to call it. (Remember this is what I think 90% of desktop virtualization will be in the future.) Wanova's approach (1) does not require a hypervisor on the client (although you can combine it with one if you want), and (2) all the smarts happen inside Windows, so it does that whole "smart replication" thing I've been all hopped up about over the past few months.

In this video, I sat down with Ady Degany, Wanova's Director of Product Management, at my office in San Francisco last Friday. We talked for over an hour, walking through their product and discussion Wanova, their customers, and their prospects.

Incidentally this video represents the approach that you're seeing from us more and more. It's kind of like the video version of the "Brian Dump" concept we had a year ago or so. In the old days I used to take these meetings with vendors and learn all these things without ever getting a chance to write or share anything. So now I thought, "Screw it. I'll just turn on a camera and do the briefing on video." So here you go! It's a bit long (over an hour), but if you want to learn about Wanova, you'll be in good shape after this video.

I'll be doing a similar video with Kaviza this week. Who should be next?

iPad fever is going around, and we caught it! Is this the ultimate desktop virtualization client?

Gabe Knuth — Thu, 28 Jan 2010 05:01:00 GMT

I wasn't going to write anything about Apple's iPad for fear of being labeled a "fanboy," but I just can't help it. Yes, I want one, even though the name kind of sucks. (iSlate was cool, I thought.) Yes, it's mostly because it's Apple and it's almost sure to rock, especially because I already love my iPod Touch, iPhone, and MacBook Pro (although I am disappointed there was no mention of Intel's i5 processors going into a future MacBook).

Really what I'm excited about with regards to desktop virtualization is that Apple has created a very capable device that fits into the client device conversation that Brian and I talked about last week on Brian Madden TV. It's a classic unmanaged device that's completely decoupled from an organization and from any virtual desktops it might access. Unlike a mobile thin client, which might have a browser or something, the iPad has many of the same features as a netbook.

During one of our VMworld 2009 BMTV episodes, we talked about Wyse PocketCloud and the practicality of using an iPod or iPhone as a thin client. We lamented that if it weren't for the small screen and lack of a keyboard, the app would actually be incredibly useful. At the time I suggested that the solution might be a bluetooth keyboard and mouse coupled with a broader video-out solution that went beyond just movies. The larger size of the iPad fulfills the latter requirement with its 1024x768 9.7" (24.6cm) screen. And while an external keyboard option doesn't yet exist for the iPhone (at least, not without jailbreaking), the iPad has the ability to plug into a keyboard dock or use a Bluetooth keyboard, essentially turning it from coffee table conversation piece into full-on client device.

I'm not suggesting that iPads will relieve any of today's client devices of their duties, but when compared to netbooks, I can see a decent use case building up. If I'm deciding between a netbook and an iPad, I'm taking a good look at what each offers me. Battery life and wireless connectivity are a wash (maybe even a little bit on the Apple side here). Apple is favored in the weight category by almost a pound, although that's not counting the keyboard dock. Screen size goes to the netbook, but not by much. (The largest netbook screens come in at around 11", and the popular Dell Mini 10 series screens are only 10.1"--less than half an inch larger than the iPad.) At that point, it really comes down to the OS and the hardware. All that said, I haven't bought a netbook yet because I didn't want another PC to manage: it just wasn't worth it for the small amount of horsepower running the big boy OS and big boy applications. In the case of the iPad, though, we have a device coupled with an OS and apps that are designed to run on it. That's a pretty tasty recipe.

Sure, the iPad has its shortcomings. No user-replaceable battery, no Flash support, no camera, no multitasking, and it doesn't run "true" Mac OS X, to name the big ones. The normal detractors will add that there's the built-in obsolescence (which is a decent point when looking through the eyes of a consumer). As an unmanaged remote access device, however, as long as it runs the client, we really don't care all that much as long as it continues to work.

I asked Brian about his thoughts of using the iPad as a desktop access client. Being a fellow fanboy, of course he was excited too. But he also pointed out an important caveat. "It's cool that you can hook up a keyboard to this thing. That will be great for running real Windows apps at 1024x768. But remember," he said, "Apple hasn't mentioned anything about Bluetooth mouse support. So that means that we'll be wiping our fingers on the screen to use the mouse in our remote Windows apps. While that will be cool at first (since it will instantly "touchify" every single app we have), after about ten minutes our arms will be tired and we'll just think 'This blows! I wish I had a normal mouse!'"

All that said, Apple isn't trying to make a remote access device. Steve Jobs himself said they are a mobile device company, so it's up to the software makers to utilize the hardware as best they can.

I'm almost afraid to ask, but what do you think? (And try to keep your comments relevant to using the iPad in a desktop virtualization context. We don't need another blog post full of comments about how much people love or hate the device itself!)

Search results matching tag 'Client Devices'

Part One: My Shameful Mobility Secret Revealed

The power of the apps side

Oh, sooo that's what a crapplication is?

VMware launches Horizon Suite, but it still has a ways to go to meet expectations. Here's our complete analysis:

Horizon View 5.2

Horizon Mirage 4.0

Horizon Workspace 1.0

Pricing & Licensing

Summary

More videos from Citrix Synergy Barcelona! ShareFile StorageZones, Nvidia VGX K2, Cisco Nexus 1000v, and Cisco VXI

Citrix ShareFile StorageZones

Nvidia VGX K2

Cisco VXI Solution

Cisco Nexus 1000v

Mobile Device Management will simply become "Device Management" as traditional desktop management companies acquire MDM products

How HTML5 remote desktop clients work

Why Android thin clients will rule

Disadvantages and unresolved questions?

VMware releases a native View PC-over-IP client for the Apple iPad

Citrix's "nirvana" phone is here in the form of the Motorola Atrix. It's awesome, but not nirvana.

What is the Nirvana Phone?

Why the Nirvana Phone concept won’t matter

Response from Citrix's Chris Fleck

Regarding the objections:

Additional reasons to consider a Nirvana Phone:

Video demo of Wanova's offline laptop disk management thing (It's really cool!)

iPad fever is going around, and we caught it! Is this the ultimate desktop virtualization client?