Liquidware Labs Helps Users Install Their Own Apps

Now that diversity is the go-to strategy for VDI-related systems, Liquidware Labs is understandably bragging about how its new ProfileUnity 5.0 with FlexApp enables virtual desktop users to seamlessly install their own apps into any non-persistent Windows environment -- including virtual desktop solutions from VMware, Citrix and Red Hat.

The key to Liquidware Labs' technology is its ability to work in these heterogeneous environments without negatively impacting master images or underlying systems. The upshot is fewer desktop images can support more workers on virtual desktops, which the company says enables more companies to "move hundreds or even thousands of physical PCs to virtual platforms running Windows 7."

Sam Ault, system administrator for Turner Brothers, is a happy ProfileUnity with FlexApp customer. Saying the software significantly changes the way users are managed in his Citrix testing and production environments, he claims they now are able to "FlexApp" every app they've tried. "The solution is highly capable of delivering on its promise of separately managing the installation of user applications, while leaving the underlying golden image intact for streamlined management," Ault notes.

Briefly stated, ProfileUnity with FlexApp is enabled by an admin for select users or groups within the ProfileUnity central console. Users are provisioned a virtual hard disk to store their apps separately from the OS and local session, which streamlines the environment. "Users need only install apps just as they would normally, and ProfileUnity with FlexApp 'hooks' the installation of the program, adding special links into both the local Windows OS and the user- managed ProfileUnity with FlexApp settings.

Liquidware Labs -- which aims to be 100 percent channel-based once desktop virtualization becomes more pervasive -- claims to encounter AppSense in 75 percent of its deals, and says it triumphs in 80 percent of those, despite AppSense's close relationship with Citrix.

Posted by Bruce Hoard on 06/04/2012 at 12:48 PM