In-Depth

Omnissa Horizon Update

• By Tom Fenton
• 03/05/2026

I recently had the opportunity to chat with Arindam Nag, vice president of Product Management at Omnissa, about what has happened with Horizon since it split off from VMware in 2024. We discussed not only the corporate changes but also Horizon's evolution under its new ownership.

Background
Horizon entered a new era when VMware sold its End-User Computing (EUC) division to private equity firm KKR in 2023/2024. This led to the business being rebranded as Omnissa. VMware decided to divest its EUC product line, which included the Horizon and Workspace ONE segments, after Broadcom acquired VMware in 2023.

Company Changes
The most visible change since the acquisition has been around branding and licensing. The product, which was previously sold and supported under the VMware name, is now called Omnissa Horizon. This name change includes all associated components and installers that adopt the Omnissa name rather than VMware. This change even includes the software purging VMware references from Horizon's file paths, ADAM database partitions, service names, log locations, registry keys, and Group Policy templates, and renaming them to align with Omnissa's branding. This rebranding firmly embedded their products with their new corporate identity and helps clarify ownership. Still, it has introduced migration work for administrators during upgrades, as well as for any scripts or automation tools that used the old file names and paths.

Beyond names, licensing has shifted to a fully Omnissa-centric model. Releases such as Horizon 8 2503 and 2506 transitioned away from VMware/Broadcom license modules to the Omnissa License Module (OLM). After upgrading, deployments without valid Omnissa keys enter a restricted mode until compliant keys are applied, pushing customers to adopt the new license ecosystem. This has implications, particularly around renewals and signals Omnissa's intent to unify licensing across its digital workspace portfolio.

Horizon
Under Omnissa's stewardship, Horizon's technical direction continues to advance and deliver feature enhancements to its users. Releases such as Horizon 8 2312 delivered improvements in security (e.g., blocking malicious SendKey scripts and modernizing the REST API), user experience (telemetry with DEEM integration), and operational capabilities, such as hybrid entitlement synchronization between on-prem and cloud environments. Later versions, such as 2503 and 2506, added deeper infrastructure visibility, streamlined lifecycle management through SMB support, and cloud-focused enhancements on Amazon WorkSpaces Core and VCF 9.0 compatibility. These changes reflect a product evolution that balances legacy Horizon capabilities with growing multi-cloud and automation needs.

From an administrative perspective, Omnissa has reinforced operational controls and hybrid cloud readiness. Horizon 8 now supports pod-level SAML configuration, enhanced authentication security (including WebAuthn within UWP apps), and more robust cloud image management services that span on-premises and public clouds. These enhancements suggest that Omnissa seeks to reduce the day-to-day administrative burden while enabling more flexible deployment and access scenarios than those offered by the classic VMware Horizon stacks.

Platform Flexibility
The most notable change under Omnissa has been increased platform flexibility, which was previously hampered by its status under VMware.

The most anticipated change was in the Horizon 8 2512 release, which brought general availability of support for Nutanix AHV, making Horizon deployments viable on an alternative hypervisor and including features such as automated RDSH farms, ClonePrep for efficient provisioning.

Alongside this, client-side UX improvements, such as a unified, modern interface across Windows, Mac, and Linux, and support for advanced GPUs (e.g., NVIDIA Blackwell RTX Pro 6000), indicate an accelerated focus on performance and a cross-platform experience.

In a world of constant cloud hype, the latest adoption trends in VDI show that on-premises pragmatism is winning. While Horizon has been synonymous with VMware's vSphere for years, the platform is expanding to other infrastructures in response to real-world customer demand to leverage their existing investments. The support for Nutanix AHV, mentioned above, is a prime example, as it was the "most oversubscribed beta" in the product's history. This integration opens a direct migration path for the large contingent of Citrix customers running on Nutanix who want to move to Horizon but were unwilling to re-platform on vSphere to do so.

Similarly, there's demand for running VDI on OpenShift. This demand is customer-driven, and Arindam mentioned that a large bank with existing OpenShift capacity is considering provisioning Horizon on it, seeing it as a way to repurpose existing server hardware without the capital investment required by vSphere. I asked about the much-hyped Azure Local, which he said is "not getting a lot of traction." Due to its specialized hardware requirement, it is a significant barrier for many customers, proving that practical hardware realities still dictate platform adoption.

Horizon Client
The Horizon client is the most visible piece of the Horizon stack for Horizon's end users. A significant highlight of the post-acquisition strategy is the introduction of "Horizon Client Next," as detailed in KB 6001222. It addresses a long-standing pain point by modernizing the user interface across Windows, Mac, and Linux. Previously, each platform had a distinct UI, creating a fragmented user experience and an administrative burden for IT teams. Horizon Client Next unifies these designs, offering a consistent look and feel that reduces training costs and simplifies support. This shift reflects Omnissa's broader philosophy of "frictionless" computing, where the platform fades into the background of the user's workflow.

In addition to the visual overhaul, the new Horizon Next client includes functional upgrades such as an enhanced, repositionable in-session toolbar. This allows users to drag, pin, or unpin essential controls, creating a customizable desktop experience tailored to individual needs. Furthermore, features like "Folders" for resource organization, which used to be exclusive to Windows, are now available in the Mac and Linux clients. These changes demonstrate a commitment to feature parity across all operating systems, ensuring that the platform's most powerful tools are available to every user regardless of the hardware on which they run.

Omnissa brings a new approach to deployment and feedback. Omnissa has implemented installation flags that allow IT administrators to test the new "Client Next" interface alongside the existing client, providing a "Tech Preview" environment without forcing an immediate, total migration. This deployment model allows organizations to validate the new experience at their own pace. Additionally, Omnissa is actively leveraging its new Community Forums and specialized support channels to gather direct user feedback, signaling a more community-driven development cycle than under its VMware ownership.

AI Integration
Any IT discussion now requires a discussion about AI, and Arindam was excited to share his take with me on how Omnissa is facing the opportunities and challenges as AI becomes more prevalent and can reduce administrators' workload.

He shared that Omnissa is currently using AI and machine learning (ML), and we also discussed Omnissa's AI roadmap. I do need to emphasize that some of the AI subjects that we discussed are on their roadmap and not yet available.

He demonstrated how Omnissa's Digital Employee Experience (DEX) solution uses ML to move beyond simple monitoring, automatically analyzing user experiences to identify common characteristics and pinpoint the source of the problem.

He discussed Omni, an AI-powered assistant that will be embedded across the Omnissa platform, enabling natural language interaction for data insights, search, and automation. It should reduce the manual effort needed and time spent on data analysis, issue resolution, knowledge retrieval, and scripting.

Desktop security is a top concern to users and administrators, and we discussed how, in the future, an AI agent could automate the entire vulnerability remediation workflow. Upon learning of a new threat, this agent could identify all vulnerable machines, package the required fix, deploy the patch across the fleet, and verify that the remediation was successful. Of course, it would need safeguards, such as the option to leave the final decision in the admin's hands.

Final Thoughts
Talking to people on the front lines, I have seen mostly positive reactions from the Horizon community under its Omnissa ownership. This reflects both the excitement and growing pains of the new company. Long-time Horizon administrators and partners appreciate the continued innovation and responsive Omnissa support, especially compared to recent Broadcom practices. Still, some have experienced practical bumps, such as changes to client download flows or quirks in registry or ADAM database paths resulting from rebranding. These human-centric elements underscore that while the product roadmap is advancing, operational realities such as documentation, tooling, and client updates remain active areas of adjustment.

Of course, the most significant change since Horizon was separated from VMware/Broadcom is that Horizon now supports a variety of deployment platforms tailored to different organizational needs. For on-premises environments, it is, of course, compatible with and supported on VMware vSphere, but its latest releases also support Nutanix AHV and other platforms. Its public cloud options include integration with Amazon WorkSpaces Core or EC2, Microsoft Azure, and Google Cloud through VMware Cloud solutions. Additionally, Horizon enables hybrid cloud deployments, allowing organizations to combine on-premises infrastructure with public cloud resources for greater flexibility and scalability. This is especially useful for those who need to grow quickly or have bursty workloads.

The journey from VMware Horizon to Omnissa Horizon has definitely been more than a simple change of ownership. It represents a rebranded, reinvigorated product with evolving cloud-centric capabilities, new licensing models, expanded platform support, and a community learning to adapt to both technical and procedural changes. As Omnissa continues to build its identity and product vision, Horizon's legacy -- now in a new corporate home -- appears poised to grow into broader deployment scenarios while honoring its roots in enterprise VDI and digital workspaces.