An in-depth analysis of the Microsoft-Kidaro deal. What does this mean for VMware, Citrix, and the industry?

Yesterday Microsoft bought desktop virtualization vendor Kidaro for an undisclosed amount (although rumors suggest as much as $100M). Kidaro makes virtualization software and management tools that "package" Windows desktop images into VMs that can run locally on users' computers. It's a lot like VMware's ACE product, although Kidaro has much better management capabilities.

Article by Brian Madden on March 13, 2008.

Citrix Virtual Design Studio enters beta. Requires OpenGL and x64. Wait... what?

Citrix Virtual Design Studio. Is this the product that was announced at Summit a few months ago that lets you design your Citrix environments virtually? Nope. That's Citrix Workflow Studio. Citrix Virtual Design Studio is the final name for what was codenamed "Project Pictor," a set of extensions for Presentation Server that let it run OpenGL-based CAD applications via ICA. So "Virtual Design Studio" is for Computer Aided Design, virtually.

Article by Brian Madden on March 11, 2008.

Citrix XenDesktop Beta is available for public download

Citrix just released the beta of XenDesktop. It's available to download by anyone. Remember that XenDesktp is a new product based on a combinations of what used to be Citrix Desktop Server, Citrix Provisioning Server (Ardence), and Citrix XenServer (for hosting desktop VMs).

Article by Brian Madden on February 27, 2008.

Novell acquires PlateSpin for $205m! Cash!

I know what you're thinking. "Novell is still around? And they have an extra $205m in cash?" I don't know too much about PlateSpin or Novell (in the context of 2008), so in this article I'll look at both companies and try to establish a framework for a conversation from readers about what this could mean.

Article by Brian Madden on February 25, 2008.

VMware releases VDM2, the new version of their VDI product. What will the impact be?

Yesterday VMware released the much-awaited update to their VDI product, VDM2. This is a complete VDI solution, packaging VI3, a desktop broker, and the management tools you need to have a turnkey VDI solution. How will it fare against Citrix, Microsoft, and Provision Networks in the market?

Article by Brian Madden on January 31, 2008.

Submit your session ideas for BriForum 2008 Chicago, the event website is live

It's a new year, and BriForum is just around the corner. As we announced in October, BriForum 2008 Chicago will take place June 16-18, 2008, at the Chicago Navy Pier. We've updated BriForum.com with all the information about this year's conference. Can you believe this will be our sixth BriForum?

Article by Brian Madden on January 29, 2008.

Microsoft gets serious about virtualized desktops (in a Microsofty way)

Now that we've spent a whole week looking at each aspects of Microsoft's big desktop virtualization announcement from Monday, let's take a step back and look at what this means in the grander scheme of things.

Article by Brian Madden on January 25, 2008.

Microsoft and Citrix clarify XenSource / Hyper-V interaction. Both companies win.

Part of Tuesday's big virtualization announcement from Microsoft detailed how Microsoft and Citrix would work together in the Hyper-V and XenSource space. It turns out that Citrix will play a critical role in what Microsoft claims is their "comprehensive" management platform.

Article by Brian Madden on January 24, 2008.

Microsoft reconsiders virtualization rules for Vista: Now you can (legally) run it in a VM, lowers VECD pricing

It's been almost a year since Microsoft officially announced their licensing policies for using Vista in virtual machine environments. Today they made a few changes to those policies.

Article by Brian Madden on January 23, 2008.

Citrix XenDesktop will run on Microsoft Hyper-V!

Citrix and Microsoft jointly announced yesterday that Citrix XenDesktop will run on Microsoft's Hyper-V hypervisor. This comes despite the fact that Citrix created XenDesktop specifically so that it was a single product that didn't need anything external, like a hypervisor from Microsoft.

Article by Brian Madden on January 23, 2008.