VMware Launches View 3

VMware has announced the general availability of View 3, which organizations can use to "decouple" desktop PCs from specific physical devices or locations. By doing so, companies can create a personalized view of an employee's desktop, applications, and data -- called "myView" -- that is securely accessible at any time from almost any device. In addition, VMware View 3 enables IT personnel to provision and manage thousands of data center-based virtual desktops simply, securely and with substantially lower operating costs.

VMware View 3 supports new products and technologies, including the following:

According to VMware, View 3 is a major step in its vClient Initiative, which aims to solve what company CEO Paul Maritz calls the "desktop dilemma" -- the business choice of whether to provide employees thick (fully loaded PCs) or thin clients. View 3 solves this dilemma by combining the benefits of both approaches -- delivering rich, personalized virtual desktops to any device (thick or thin), while simplifying management and securing endpoints. VMware View 3 is available immediately.

Like peace, love, and understanding, thin clients are an idea that just keeps coming around, and for solid technical, financial, and business reasons. Overall, the concept and value proposition driving thin clients is the same today as it was over a decade ago. That is, while widely distributed desktop PCs (and now, notebooks) can be hugely beneficial to individual employees, they are painfully complicated for enterprises to deploy, manage, and maintain.

Thin client solutions fix those problems by sequestering compute components (processors, memory, and storage) in central data centers, then hosting PC functionality to employee desktops via company networks. Elemental problems, including desktop performance latency and the complexities of managing hundreds or thousands of servers, have mostly limited the appeal of thin clients to call centers and other highly concentrated desktop computing environments.However, a number of strides have been made to improve or correct those issues. Some companies offer software-based accelerators to improve desktop latency and lengthen the maximum distance between data centers and hosted desktops. In addition, network specialist Teradici, which partners with many thin-client vendors, offers a hardware-based accelerator that virtually eliminates latency and limitations on data center location.

Virtualization-enabled thin clients -- or "virtual desktops" -- have been available for several years, but VMware's new View 3 solution aims to up the stakes and value of virtual desktops a few notches. VMware View 3 does this via features, including View Composer, ThinApp, Offline Desktop, and Unified Access, which aim to simplify virtual thin client and application creation, deployment, and management. In all, we expect that data center managers and administrators stressed for time and looking to improve efficiency should welcome these additions.

In addition, the new Virtual Printing and Multimedia Redirection features extend the value of View 3 to end users, easing headaches related to incompatible printer drivers and improving the performance of multimedia files, a common problem in many thin client environments.

However, View 3's greatest impact may result from an unspoken point: the degree to which virtualization has become increasingly ubiquitous in data centers of every size. Though traditional thin clients leverage industry-standard hardware components, most also employ applications and interfaces peculiar to individual vendors. By integrating critical management processes and technical enhancements, View 3, which can be hosted in VMware's Infrastructure 3 virtualization and management platform, offers administrators a common, recognizable platform for deploying and maintaining virtual desktops and hosting environments.

Will this be enough to drive deeper, wider adoption of thin clients? That is the multimillion-dollar question. To date, thin clients have mostly qualified as a technology that offers greater engineering sense than individual appeal. Companies that adopted virtual desktops and similar products tended to be those venturesome enough or desperate enough to abandon convention and embrace new options and opportunities.Current issues and events -- including deepening economic malaise, the need to conserve capital and find savings of every kind, and a continuing search for technology solutions to solve fundamental business problems -- could be the spark that helps virtual desktops finally catch fire among broader audiences. With View 3, VMware has created a virtualization-enabled, hosted client solution that enterprises will find utterly familiar and comfortable, yet still essentially new.

Charles King, President and Principal Analyst for research firm Pund-IT Inc. , focuses on business technology evolution and interpreting the effects these changes will have on vendors, their customers, and the greater IT marketplace. Since founding Pund-IT in December 2004, Charles has published the Pund-IT Weekly Review, which contains a variety of industry analysis features, including this blog.