Month: November 2013

The new version of VMware Horizon View (5.3) supports more options with the HTML5 client! Now, audio works! That is a biggie for me! What's new in HTML Access with VMware Horizon View™ 5.3 VMware End-User Computing Blog - "When we first released HTML Access in March this year, the key use case we were aiming to enable revolved around what I call 'transient access'. This basically means being able to access your Horizon View desktop from a device that you don’t own to quickly do some work. So if you’re on vacation and need to access your Horizon View desktop from your brother's computer, all you need to do is fire up a web browser and point it at your company’s Horizon View server. What we didn't realize when…

Watch out Google! When you shut off projects like Google Reader, that folks depend on, you run the risk of them developing their own, private Google for home! (Somehow, I don't think Google is losing sleep, but hey!) This 23-year-old's open-source project, a server running on Raspberry Pi VentureBeat - "For most of us, Google shutting down Reader was annoying. For Jacob Cook, it was a call to arms. He's now building an operating system that anyone can use to replace all of the services that Google provides — or any other cloud company, for that matter. Email, chat, file sharing, web hosting: With Cook's arkOS, you'll be able to run all of those essential services on a secure, private server in your own home that's about the size of…

VirtualBox is my personal hypervisor of choice for desktop "one-off" projects. Mainly because it is free, Open Source, and very, very easy to use. Now, it takes a further "step up" by offering Windows 8.x support and support for touch-screens. Nice! Review: VirtualBox 4.3 goes touchy-feely for Windows 8 virtualization PC World - "Historically, VirtualBox has been rock-solid, lightweight virtualization software that was only slightly less capable than its rival, VMware. Starting about a year and a half ago, VirtualBox became a bit less than that, acquiring new features, but becoming less reliable. Fortunately, the latest versions seem to have come back around, and 4.3 adds an important capability: support for touchscreens. I'm not a huge fan of fingerprints all over my screen, but as a user of tablets and…

That is the message that Red Hat wants you to come away with! Do you want a very inexpensive way to virtualize in house? Do you want to be positioned to use OpenStack to take your business into cloud computing? Red Hat's new release of RHEV (Red Hat Enterprise Virtualization) is designed to make you "take a look" and consider them as an alternative. Red Hat Ramps Up Virtualization and Cloud Initiatives ServerWatch - "Red Hat virtualization is a bit of a strange one. Its KVM is very much an "on the one hand … on the other" type of hypervisor when you think about it. On the one hand, the technology is good, and Red Hat is clearly committed to its Red Hat Enterprise Virtualization (RHEV), and now also…

Ouch! Somebody out there is taking the Amazon DaaS service announcement seriously! Citrix, VMware Stocks Fall On Amazon Cloud Push Investors.com - "Shares of Citrix Systems (CTXS) and VMware (VMW) were down for a second day following Amazon.com's (AMZN) announcement that its Amazon Web Services unit will enter the desktop virtualization market to boost its cloud computing business. VMware's virtualization software is widely used in corporate data centers to increase the flexibility and capabilities of computer servers, but it's also moving onto desktops. Citrix has focused its virtualization technology in desktop PC environments. AWS said in a blog post Wednesday that it plans to offer Amazon WorkSpaces, a desktop virtualization product. Analysts expect AWS virtualization platform to be ready in the first half of 2014. WorkSpaces, provides secure, cloud-based access…

That's "DaaS" for "Desktop as a Service." Is this the wave of the future? Cloud-based desktops for business? Amazon Launches 'WorkSpaces' For Desktop Users Information Week - "Amazon Web Services announced Wednesday that it is entering the desktop virtualization market and will offer Amazon WorkSpaces -- Windows-based desktops -- from its cloud servers. Amazon Workspaces were introduced during a keynote talk by Andy Jassy, senior VP, at Re:Invent, AWS' annual event for around 9,000 developers, partners, and customers in Las Vegas. The desktop move comes at the expense of VMware, Citrix and Microsoft, who have gone unchallenged until now in their slow progress to virtualize desktops. Virtualization thus far has been primarily a data center phenomenon, consolidating applications on servers and reducing the total physical server count. But for all…

VMware has acquired DaaS vendor Desktone, a Boston based firm that specializes in desktop virtualization. VMware makes desktop virtualization move in buying Desktone GigaOm - Live from VMworld Europe, VMware is buying Desktone, a Boston-based desktop virtualization vendor. The acquisition — terms of which were not disclosed — was announced Tuesday morning. In a statement, Sanjay Poonen, VMware's executive vice president and GM of end-user computing called Desktone a 'leader in desktop-as-a-service [that] has a complete and proven blueprint for enabling service providers to deliver DaaS.' Poonen joined VMware from SAP in August, so this is his first major mark on the company. At VMworld in August, VMware had already announced plans to offer DaaS, a plan that could be accelerated via this acquisition. Update: It turns out that the…