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Saturday, October 11, 2008
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VMware acquires application virtualization company

Virtualization heavyweight looks to beef up desktop virtualization capabilities via Thinstall buyout

VMware announced Tuesday it has entered into an agreement to acquire application virtualization vendor Thinstall for an undisclosed sum.

The buy, expected to close within the current fiscal quarter, would give VMware technology to enable customers to provision, deploy and update desktop environments, the company says. Founded in 1999, Thinstall boasts some 600 customers and has software license deals with companies such as LANDesk.  

The company's technology enables IT staff to create virtual applications, which when coupled with VMware's desktop virtualization capabilities will help customers cut costs and labor around delivering and maintaining desktop applications, VMware says. (Learn more about Desktop and Client Management products from our Desktop and Client Management Buyer's Guide.)

"Delivering software applications to an organization's workforce is the single largest cost of desktop administration today," said Jeff Jennings, vice president of desktop products and solutions at VMware, in a statement.

Thinstall technology is able to decouple applications from the underlying operating systems, which VMware says improves application portability and makes it easier to deploy across multiple desktops. Also, Thinstall doesn't require agents to be installed on endpoints, removing an administration burden from IT staff.

Thinstall executives say the company’s Virtual Operating System technology works with existing application management systems to distribute multiple operating system technologies to client machines and enable applications to move with users when necessary. While VMware will likely face competition from Citrix and Microsoft, Thinstall's CEO says by joining forces with VMware, Thinstall will give enterprise customers a standard platform on which to expand virtualization efforts to the desktop.

"As organizations continue to standardize on virtualization infrastructure, they are looking to extend the benefits of server virtualization to the desktop," said Henrik Rosendahl, CEO of Thinstall, in a company statement.

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