RES Provides Desktop Virtualization’s Missing Link

RES Software delivered a Valentine’s Day gift to everyone looking to implement virtual desktops with the long awaited announcement that RES Virtual Desktop Extender (VDX) has been released as a stand-alone product. 

One of the most frustrating roadblocks to a successful desktop virtualization implementation is the challenge of integrating locally installed applications into a server hosted virtual desktop environment.  As much as we would like to think otherwise, some applications cannot be moved from desktop to data center without suffering considerable performance problems,  not to mention the prospect of making the administrators life hell when it comes to attempting to support these applications.  The administrator’s problems however pale into insignificance when compared to the user experience of having to swap a between virtual desktop and locally installed applications and all that that brings with it. Until now, administrators had few limited available to them to resolve this type of problem.  None of the leading vendors of desktop virtualization brokers provide a reverse seamless windows offering.  The only option available being either to buy the full RES Software Workspace Manager suite, or to consider Ericom’s recently announced PowerTerm WebConnect 5.7.   As attractive as WebConnect is, it is difficult to recommend it as a means of providing reverse seamless windows.  Regardless of how well this feature works, it is overshadowed by the RES Software patent on this technology. The possibility that RES will challenge the patent in court is significant (RES make a point of stating “And we have a patent…so you can’t get this technology from anyone else.”  in its advertising).  Should this come to court, an unfavorable verdict would present a significant problem for both for Ericom and its customers.

RES is pricing Virtual Desktop Extender at just $15 per seat;  large enterprise customers should be able to get this down to $10 with volume discounts. Regardless of whether you pay $15 per seat for 10 licenses or $10 per seat for 10,000, the cost of VDX is inconsequential compared to a typical IT budget.  Given that the benefits in terms of end-user experience are so great, any organization with even the slightest justification for VDX would be able to buy it without a second thought.

One other possible consideration for RES would be to license VDX to a desktop virtualization broker vendor.  Quest has been particularly active when it comes to licensing other vendors technology and clearly understands the benefits of being able to offer reverse seamless windows as a component of vWorkspace.  At the same time, Citrix clearly understands the benefits inherent in reverse seamless windows (it’s own Project Apollo technology demonstrated a reverse seamless capability some time ago – we can only speculate that it never came to market due to concerns about the RES patent) and is I’m sure just as aware of the opportunity that VDX represents. Another possibility would be to see VMware license VDX for inclusion with View.  In the past VMware has taken a dim view of the idea of anything less than a pure virtual infrastructure, but appears to be softening its position of late and might consider licensing VDX as pragmatic acceptance of the continued presence of desktop applications. Unfortunately for VMware VDX  does not work with PCoIP and is unlikely to be able to do so without significant work. Lack of support for PCoIP significantly reduces the possibility that VMware would consider this path,  announcing a new feature that was only available using Microsoft’s RDP protocol would not go down well for company that is keen to be taken seriously on the desktop.

For more comprehensive assessment of RES Virtual Desktop Extender read my previous post which was published shortly after RES  first announced that it was going to release VDX  as a stand-alone solution.