Today at VMworld 2010 Europe, VMware, Inc., the global leader in virtualization and cloud infrastructure, advanced its vision for the future of end user computing with new products and a partnership to help organizations evolve their legacy desktop computing environments to a more modern, user-centric application and data delivery model.

Introduced at VMworld 2010 in San Francisco, IT as a Service is the transformation of IT to a more business-centric approach, focusing on outcomes such as operational efficiency, competitiveness and rapid response. This means IT shifts from producing IT services to optimizing production and consumption of those services in ways consistent with business requirements. This changes the role of IT from a cost center to a center of strategic value.

”Desktop computing is rapidly moving to a world focused on connecting end users to critical data and applications they need via any device at the edge of the cloud,” said Vittorio Viarengo, vice president, End User Computing products, VMware. “Enterprises today are seeking a path forward from a decades-old PC-centric architecture to a model that enables users to be more productive while more effectively managing the growing portfolio of devices, data and applications. VMware is uniquely positioned to help enterprises unlock the value of their existing end user investments while architecting a more flexible, more powerful model that serves the needs of end users and the business for decades to come.”

Advancing an Evolutionary Approach to End User Computing
The VMware End User Computing strategy delivers solutions for enterprises to evolve their PC-centric environments to a more modern architecture that leverages cloud computing to deliver applications and data to end users when and where they need it. Announced in August at VMworld 2010 in San Francisco, VMware View™ 4.5, VMware ThinApp™ 4.6, VMware vShield™ Endpoint, Zimbra Appliance and VMware’s Desktop Infrastructure Service provide a foundation for a new way of addressing the two fundamental client computing challenges, enabling secure data access to an increasingly mobile workforce and managing the burgeoning diversity of data, applications and client devices needed to run their businesses.

Also in August, VMware previewed and demonstrated Project Horizon, a cloud-based management service that securely extends enterprise identities into the cloud to provide new methods for provisioning and managing applications and data based on the user, not the device or underlying operating system.

Today, VMware continues to build on this model, introducing:

• Siemens selects VMware View 4.5 to deliver hosted virtual desktop Service
  Siemens IT Solutions and Services and VMware today announced an agreement to jointly develop, market and deploy new, hosted virtual desktop services based on VMware View 4.5.

VMware View 4.5 is a complete virtual desktop solution that enables enterprises to improve security, lower operating costs, and simplify desktop administration and management by establishing a modern, end user computing architecture that is centrally hosted and managed while being delivered to users across the broadest set of devices. Siemens, one of the world’s leading providers of managed client infrastructures, will use VMware View 4.5 to establish a hosted desktop environment enabling its enterprise IT customers to provide secure, real-time access to enterprise desktops from any device while significantly reducing the ongoing costs of desktop management.

“Siemens IT Solutions and Services will provide premium, hosted virtual desktop services to enterprises of all sizes based on VMware View™ 4.5,” said Ralf Eichler, vice president, Portfolio and Innovation, Siemens IT Solutions and Services. “Thanks to our agreement with VMware, our hosted virtual desktops will provide a more compelling user experience than traditional desktops while enabling our customers to rapidly deploy, manage and secure large-scale desktop infrastructures in minutes. Perhaps most compelling for our customers is the reduced capital and operational expenses associated with large-scale client infrastructures.”

• VMware View 4.5 achieves acquisition cost savings with first sub-$300 stateless desktops
  Outlined in a Reference Architecture Brief announced in August at VMworld 2010 in San Francisco, VMware continues to rewrite the economics of VDI deployment thanks to the tiered storage enhancements of VMware View 4.5 and the company’s broad ecosystem of infrastructure partners. Acquisition cost is frequently cited as an inhibitor to virtual desktop adoption. Validated in a white paper commissioned by VMware and published by Enterprises Management Associates, enterprises leveraging existing client devices can now deploy a secure, flexible, highly responsive and stateless virtual desktop at a datacenter infrastructure cost under $242 per user, more than 60 percent lower than previously published architectures.

Available today, the full reference architecture includes detailed validation for a deployment of 1,000 desktops. Download the reference architecture titled VMware Reference Architecture for Stateless Virtual Desktops with VMware View 4.5.

• Zimbra™ Desktop 2.0 enhances end user collaboration experience with offline access
  Available now, Zimbra Desktop 2.0 extends the power of Software as a Service (SaaS)-based collaboration to the desktop with an unparalleled end user experience that works across many different platforms. Zimbra Desktop 2.0 is designed to give Zimbra Collaboration Suite users customizable offline access to their email, contacts, calendar and document management features in one central place. Moreover, Zimbra Desktop 2.0 operates consistently across all platforms (Windows, Mac and Linux) and provides a unified offline solution for businesses with multiple operating systems for end users.

Additionally, Desktop 2.0 brings a new level of manageability and integration to the world of SaaS-based applications by enabling users and administrators to download Zimlets directly to their desktop client. Zimlets seamlessly integrate Zimbra’s collaboration experience with third-party, SaaS-based data sources to create new "mash-up" user interfaces within a user’s email and collaboration environment.

The new Social Zimlet in Desktop 2.0 integrates updates from Twitter, Facebook, Digg and other social networks. With more than 100 Zimlets available for download, features such as translation, CRM, photos, maps and online meeting management can be easily added to the desktop client.  Additional information on VMware Zimbra Desktop 2.0 can be found at http://www.vmware.com/files/pdf/vmworld/vmware-zimbra-desktop2.0-en.pdf.

 
Pricing and Availability
Zimbra Desktop 2.0 is generally available today worldwide as a free-of-charge download in 12 languages, including: Danish, Dutch, French, German, Italian, Polish, Russian, Spanish, Swedish and Turkish.