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VMware Debuts Horizon WorkSpace, Updates to Horizon Suite

VMware announced updates to its Horizon Suite, including a mobile component that provides for enterprise-grade device management.

• By Michael Domingo
• 02/20/2013

VMware announced significant updates to its Horizon Suite, the company's suite of tools for managing the wide array of end-user computing endpoints. The update includes a new product, Horizon Workspaces, that provides for enterprise-grade device management.

The update essentially makes good on a promise made at last year's VMworld to release a management solution that encompasses management of the wide array of devices and the apps that run on them in a post-Wintel era.

"The days of one desktop or one laptop are long gone," said Erik Frieberg, senior director of product marketing for End-User Computing at VMware. "First, today users are bringing in various devices -- iPads, tablets, smartphones... -- it's forcing organizations to contend with the flood of devices into the enterprise. Second, we're seeing an avalanche of new applications, including SaaS applications and mobile apps over the last few years. So, users have a myriad of choices that they didn't have a few short years ago."

Frieberg cites some strong evidence among its own clients that consumerization of IT as key driver for much of these apps and the users that are requesting them, not for just internal business processes but for external ones as well, such as when working with partners, customers, and contractors.

For IT to deliver services in a secure manner, that's the idea behind the new addition to the Horizon Suite. Horizon Workspace allows IT to administer and distribute desktops to users -- complete with the data and applications and services -- independent of the various device or endpoint machine configurations that users might be requesting those services. Admins can then add new users and devices without laboriously reconfiguring each addition. Accessibility and security is centrally managed via Horizon Workspace also then centrally manages user accessibility and security through policies.

The Horizon Suite also includes two updated solutions, Horizon View 5.2 and Horizon Mirage 4.0.

Horizon View provides management capabilities for virtual desktops within the suite. New in version 5.2 is hardware-accelerated 3D graphics support and simplified access to Horizon View desktops using any HTML5-based browser. Horizon View also includes Unity touch functionality, which allows device interfacing via gestures. Horizon Mirage is a layered image management system for physical desktops. New in version 4.0 is ability to update layers discretely. It also integrates with VMware ThinApp for packaging applications, as well as being able to rollback to an earlier working environment in the event of a disaster. This version comes with VMware Fusion Professional.

Horizon Suite pricing starts at $300 per named user when it's released some time the first quarter of 2013; individual components will also be available for purchase. For more information on the suite, go here; for pricing info, go here.