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Does anyone know why Dell is not sponsoring Citrix's Synergy conference next week? I though the two companies were on good terms, what with Dell now selling PowerEdge servers with embedded XenServer. Maybe Dell spent all their event money being a platinum sponsor of VMworld last year or being a platinum sponsor of VMwold Europe this year? Or maybe Fake Steve was right when he said that Dell will not bounce back from their current earning slump?...

Ever since the RDP 6 / Bear Paw rumors came out five years ago, I've gone back-and-forth as to whether the increased features in Terminal Server will impact Citrix's Presentation Server business. I originally thought Citrix was screwed. Then I didn't. Then I did. Then I wasn't sure. But now that Windows Server 2008 has been released, and now that its Terminal Services capabilities have been used in the field, I feel confident saying that Citrix has nothing to worry about....

Desktone, the desktop-as-a-service (DaaS?) company, has just signed on both HP and Verizon to provide desktops-as-a-service to their customers. Right now Alessandro says they're only based on VMware's VI3 infrastructure, which is insteresting since Citrix was one of the investors who threw $17M into the company last summer....

I just logged in to MyCitrix for the first time in a few months. They informed my that I had to change my password. I tried a few of my standard ones, but they were all rejected for being to simple. Then I tried my "real" password--the one I use for domains and stuff--and it was also rejected for being too simple. Then I took a minute to actually read the requirements and I was shocked! I think MyCitrix has the most complex requirements ever, including:...

Yesterday Alessandro leaked that VMware is planning on renaming the "Thinstall" product to "ThinApp" in the next release. Since then I've received emails from four different people at Citrix laughing at VMware, saying "can you believe this?!?" And the bloggers have started commenting that this is a problem since Citrix just renamed Presentation Server to XenApp....

I had an opportunity to hear a pitch from a company called "DNSstuff" recently, which was interesting. ...

Login VSI is a benchmarking tool you can use to compare the relative performance of one desktop technology to another. For years there have been tools like WinBench that have provided a standard way to benchmark the performance of a Windows desktop computer. Login VSI hopes to be the same thing for virtual desktop sessions....

There are several different technologies that can be used to deliver desktops to users. Citrix and VMware each make products that only support a subset of the different options. Sometimes it's kind of funny to watch them navigate the space, only talking about the specific ways they offer solutions and why their way is the best way....

Now that the May 20 release date of Citrix XenDesktop is getting close, it's worth having a conversation about some strange pricing that works out to a $175 per concurrent user (CCU) tax on application publishing....

This week I received the Citrix Technology Professional award, awesome!. Brad Nunn, Citrix Sr. Program Manager says ”Congratulations on being selected to receive the Citrix Technology Professional award. Citrix recognizes and greatly appreciates the many contributions you have made toward enhancing the success of Citrix implementations worldwide, whether through sharing knowledge on web sites, publishing technical documentation, creating active communities of Citrix users, participating in online discussion forums, offering technical expertise in the field, or speaking publicly at conferences. The wealth of knowledge you have developed – and more importantly, openly shared – has proven invaluable to both Citrix and our customers” It’s really a honor to be part of this select group of IT professionals!...

Tim Mangan is at Microsoft Management Summit 2008 (MMS), Microsoft's annual show dedicated to Management Products, this week in Las Vegas. Held at the Venetian Hotel in Las Vegas this year, MMS is the annual conference for System Center, including...

The annual MVP conference at Microsoft's campus is Redmond is a great opportunity for the twenty-or-so Terminal Server MVPs to spend a few days with Microsoft's Terminal Server product group. While most of the conversations are NDA, one cool thing...

Large software suppliers are so focused on the management and maintenance of ICT systems that they tend to forget the other important half, the user side, of this management. Users would like to have a simple, uniform, fast and reliable workspace environment. Administrators would like to be able to manage this Windows workspace centrally, regardless of whether it is a physical or virtual workplace, implemented locally or centrally and whether the Windows applications are installed, streamed or virtualised. In many organisations the term ‘user workspace management’ is still relatively unknown. When the organisation understands the meaning of user workspace management and sees the opportunities and benefits this provides to the users and the IT organisation, the customer, in my experience, is often surprised that this solution has not been applied earlier. Customers who use user workspace solutions reap the benefits of this and never want to go back again! ...

The Brian Madden Company is a tiny company--just a handful of employees. We don't have an office. We don't have any patents. And we don't have any "real" intellectual property. The only thing we have is our reputation. But one thing has remained consistent since I wrote that first book seven years ago, and that is my independence when it comes to vendors. Now that our website has become so popular and our articles and blogs are regularly getting 20, 30, and 40 comments, I'd like to take a moment to clarify what I mean when I say that I'm "independent."...

Haven't had a video yet this week, so I was looking through them and found this video from Kevin Goodman and Michael Thomason. It's entitled "Scriptable Virtual Channels," and it covers how to create your own virtual channel for Citrix...