These days, more and more customers are looking to move their workloads and services to the cloud. Not only does this make good business and financial sense, it also helps improve the speed and scope of services that organizations can provide across the board. So it should come as no surprise that desktops and apps as a service, or what is often referred to as DaaS, is also gaining strong traction with customers this year. IDC sees it and has predicted that DaaS will grow from $376M in 2014 to over $1.4B in 2019.[1] We are also seeing this demand at VMware.
Almost two years ago, we launched our VMware Horizon Air service on VMware vCloud Air to support customers with the ability to take advantage of apps, desktops and disaster recovery (DR) as a cloud-hosted service. And we have seen demand for this service grow across every region.
This is why we are excited today to announce that Horizon Air customers will soon have the opportunity to leverage the IBM Cloud—in addition to vCloud Air—to deliver full Windows desktops (including Windows 10 desktops) or published apps to a wide range of devices.
This is great news for customers looking to embrace desktops and apps as a service, and here are a few reasons why:
1. Availability of VMware Horizon Air Across More Locations
With this partnership, VMware Horizon Air customers will be able to gain access to IBM’s growing footprint of 46 Cloud Data Centers worldwide over the fullness of time. This will extend the scope and range of locations Horizon Air customers can take advantage of for single or multi-site deployments.
2. Access to IBM Cloud Connectivity
With a 10 GB Backbone Network connecting IBM Cloud Datacenters, VMware Horizon Air customers will enjoy the ability to move images, desktop and apps between datacenters with lightning fast speed to help end-users stay as productive as possible.
3. Same Low Costs
VMware Horizon Air customers can still enjoy access to VMware’s standard, advanced and enterprise desktops and app services for the same low monthly or annual subscription costs, as VMware is not making any changes to their list prices.
4. Agile Infrastructure with Great SLAs
IBM Cloud supports customers with fast access to desktop, app services and capacity so end-users can be online in a matter of minutes and hours. And with custom-fit hardware, the IBM Cloud offers customers a solution configured to best meet the needs of an organization looking to take advantage of VMware Horizon Air desktops and apps.
At VMware, we have heard from many customers that enabling mobility through cloud services is the way forward. Customers have said that they want more choice and greater flexibility as they make this move. The expanded partnership with IBM paves the way for us to give customers just that.
For additional information, visit the resources below:
- Watch a video message from Pat Gelsinger, VMware chief executive officer, and Robert LeBlanc, IBM Cloud senior vice president
- Read a blog post by Jim Comfort, IBM Cloud chief technology officer
- Press Release
- Follow VMware Horizon Air on Facebook and Twitter
- Follow IBM on Facebook and Twitter
[1] Source: International Data Corporation (IDC), Worldwide Virtual Client Computing Desktop as a Service-Enabling Software Forecast, 2015-2019; Robert Young and David Laing
