Important Desktop Virtualisation Announcements

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Hi Folks,
I can do no better than point you at This blog post from the MDOP product team. But if you need further encouragement, besides covering the new Windows Virtualization 4.5 (latest Softgrid release) in some detail they also announce new really interesting upcoming licensing changes to enable new home and remote worker scenarios. Here's a snippet;

"New Licensing Changes Address Tomorrow’s Challenges

The Optimized Desktop isn’t just about addressing today’s challenges. To help give IT departments the flexibility to make their Optimized Desktop infrastructure ready for the next generation of users, we’re expanding the Vista Enterprise Centralized Desktop (VECD) license beyond VDI to provide additional flexibility for emerging use cases in the Enterprise. This proactive licensing change, which will take effect January 1st, 2009, will enable several nascent user scenarios:

· Employee owned machines: Traditionally, computers are purchased as company assets and distributed to employees based on job function. Some companies are trialing permitting users to buy the PC of their choice with a company stipend. The changes enable early-adopter companies to let users purchase with the PC of their choice, but still perform business tasks in a secure, standard Windows Vista desktop image running in a virtual machine. IT departments can enable this scenario via VECD for $110 per PC/year.

· Contract Workers: Companies can use VECD to deploy a standard, sandboxed, Windows Vista virtual machine for use on contractor machines for $110 per PC/yr. By enabling all workers, even contractors, to work with a standard image, companies can improve productivity and reduce IT headaches by enforcing application, security, and document standards.

· Desktop-based employees who occasionally from home: VECD also enables desktop-based workers to take a local copy of their Windows Vista virtual machine to any VECD covered Windows machine at work or to take it home. VECD permits this scenario for $23 per PC /year."