Click here to receive your FREE subscription to Campus Technology
News
Citrix Takes On VMware with XenDesktop
5/20/2008
With a tiered pricing structure designed to undercut VMware's offerings, Citrix has announced the availability of XenDesktop, its much anticipated and discussed product offering in the increasingly important desktop virtualization arena. At the company's Synergy event in Houston, it also took the wraps off of some important product portfolio details.
The complete product line sports five different editions for various use cases. A new Express Edition will provide free desktop virtualization for up to 10 users. The Standard Edition, priced at $75 per concurrent user, represents Citrix's entry-level offering for departmental implementations. The line also includes an Advanced Edition, available for IT shops that have already implemented existing application delivery solutions. The advanced edition sells for $195.
Also being offered is an Enterprise Edition, priced at $295, which integrates application delivery with XenApp for Virtual Desktops. And finally a Platinum Edition ($395) was announced which is optimized for IT shops looking to implement DaaS or "desktop as a service" from a datacenter. According to the company, the Platinum Edition adds a number of enhancements including security and monitoring features. It also includes a VOIP-based click to call feature dubbed EasyCall.
VMware's Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI) is the market leader in the desktop virtualization space. It's a niche that is becoming increasingly crowded by major vendors like Citrix, Microsoft HP and Sun, and a number of startups like Desktone, PanoLogic and Qumranet's SolidICE. While VMware's VDI has a head start and is the most visible desktop solution, offerings from the competition usually come in at a lower price.
In desktop virtualization, a user's complete desktop environment, including operating system, applications and personalized settings, are stored in a virtual machine on a server. The environment is then pushed out to the user, who can be using a regular desktop PC, or thin client or other "dummy" terminal.
Virtualization Review Editor Keith Ward contributed to this story.
Cite this Site
copy text (above) for proper citation
Recommended Reading
- Tufts Grants Rights for Mileage-Increasing Transportation Technology to Electric Truck
Tufts University has optioned rights to a technology that can recharge the batteries of any hybrid electric and electric-powered vehicle while it is driven. The Tufts-developed technology could increase by 20 percent to 70 percent the miles per gallon or total driving range performance of vehicles like the Honda Civic, Ford Escape, and Toyota Prius hybrids and the Tesla Motors and Phoenix Motorcars electric vehicles.
- U Florida and Cyntellect Collaborate to Unlock Mysteries of Cancer Stem Cells
The University of Florida has entered into a research agreement with life sciences company Cyntellect. The university's Interdisciplinary Center for Biotechnology Research will work with the company to focus on a variety of research areas including the purification and analysis of cancer stem cells (CSCs), rare cells believed to be directly involved in propagating cancers.
- George Mason U Receives Grant To Deploy Intergraph Apps for Intelligence Curriculum
George Mason University (GMU) in Fairfax, VA has been awarded a grant from Intergraph to enable students enrolled in GMU's Geospatial Intelligence Graduate Certificate program to use the company's geospatial production and exploitation software as part of their core curriculum.
- Institute for Cyber Security at U Texas, San Antonio Opens Incubator
The University of Texas at San Antonio (UTSA) Institute for Cyber Security (ICS) has launched a new Internet security incubator. The incubator was developed to commercialize promising technologies that address major cyber security and privacy issues. The first companies to enter the incubator are Denim Labs and SafeMashups.
- ISO/IEC Publishes Office Open XML Standard
ISO/IEC has published the Office Open XML (OOXML) file format standard, formally known as ISO/IEC 29500:2008. It describes file formats originally designed by Microsoft for its Office 2007 productivity suite, which are used in presentation, spreadsheet and word processing applications.
- Dynamics NAV 2009 ERP Coming Next Month
Microsoft exec Kirill Tatarinov Wednesday described some new features to expect in the forthcoming Microsoft Dynamics NAV 2009 enterprise resource planning solution. He gave the keynote address at Microsoft's Convergence 2008 event in Copenhagen, Denmark.
