VMWare Acquires Thinstall

By Greg McNevin

January 17, 2008: VMWare is making moves to expand its desktop virtualisation capabilities, announcing its intentions to buy Thinstall and its agentless application virtualisation software.

The virtualisation specialist has announced that it has entered into a definitive agreement to acquire Thinstall, with a view to providing its customers with more effective ways to provision, deploy and update desktop environments.

Thinstall’s software decouples applications from underlying operating systems, improving isolation and portability for applications across desktop environments. VMWare claims this agentless approach to application virtualisation enables the rapid, secure and cost effective delivery of software applications to desktops, as they require no pre-installed software on physical or virtual PC’s and no new deployment infrastructure or management tools.

“Delivering software applications to an organisation’s workforce is the single largest cost of desktop administration today,” said Jeff Jennings, vice president of desktop products and solutions at VMware.

“Thinstall’s third generation solution offers the best technological approach in the market for application virtualisation, providing faster, easier and more secure delivery of software applications to desktop-based workforces.”

The deal is expected to be completed this fiscal quarter. Terms were not disclosed.

Also in today’s announcement, VMware says it has acquired the virtualisation services assets of the New Hampshire-based Foedus, further adding to its desktop virtualisation services.

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