VMware Unveils “Breakthrough” Virtual Desktop

March 8, 2007: VMware is showing off a new public beta of its ACE2 Enterprise Edition, pitching the solution as the only product that allows IT administrators to centrally manage and control virtual desktops installed on any PC.

Sounds like a dream for all the God-King’s out there, but the company is promising more than administrator control. VMware says that ACE is a breakthrough product that enables first the creation of a standard PC environment including operating system, data and applications, this can then be wrapped up with IT policies to protect the contents, packaged into a virtual machine and deployed to any PC or even a portable media device.

According to the company, generation two delivers the only controlled and easily managed enterprise-class virtualisation product for deploying desktops to any PC, providing a rich virtual desktop environment to end users while maintaining the control required by the governing IT organisation.

“IT administrators need tighter desktop control and management because they are tasked with supporting increasing numbers of workers who use equipment over which they have no control,” said Jerry Chen, director of enterprise desktop platforms and solutions at VMware. “VMware ACE 2 Enterprise edition offers the best of both worlds - IT administrators can easily manage thousands of users while effectively upholding corporate IT policies, and the end user can be productive with a desktop that has the identical look and feel of an IT-owned PC.

“It’s like handing out a secure, controlled laptop without the cost and hassle of provisioning new hardware.”

One particularly interesting feature is VMware ACE 2’s desktop mobility abilities. Pocket ACE enables the deployment of a full-featured desktop virtual machine to a portable media device such as a USB flash drive, portable hard drive or Apple iPod. The company says that users can load a secure desktop onto the media device, plug it into a licensed PC or laptop and access the desktop from nearly anywhere with network connectivity.

VMware ACE 2 Enterprise edition is currently in public beta for Linux and Windows and is available for download from the company’s website. Generally availability is expected during the second quarter of 2007.

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