VMTN Blog

Today we're pleased to announce the acquisition of Thinstall and its agentless application virtualization technology. Here is VMware's Warren Ponder on the significance on his Virtual Desktop Blog:

Where VMware VDI enables organizations to break the bind between the Desktop OS and physical desktops systems. Thinstall allows organizations to break the bind of the Desktop OS and the Applications. Combined organizations will be able to start delivering dynamic desktop environments and better manage desktop computing across the enterprise. With the ThinStall VOS - Virtual Operating System, organizations can easily package and deploy the most complex applicaitons without worrying about application conflicts or costly and challenging application sequencing operations.

For a deep dive, there is an hour-long video, podcasts, white papers, and some downloadable trials on the VMware site: VMware to Acquire Thinstall.

Brian Madden, noted desktop computing expert, calls it "a brilliant move": VMware buys Thinstall! What does it mean?

The key differentiator between Thinstall and the other products is that Thinstall is "agentless." It doesn't require any software agent to be pre-installed on a workstation before Thinstall-packaged applications can run.  ...

The most obvious place for Thinstall in VMware's solution stack is for use with their Windows XP and Windows Vista desktop delivery products, including their VDI solutions for server-based computing scenarios and VMware ACE for local computing scenarios. Thinstall is great here because the more apps you package with Thinstall, the less you have to build into your base Windows disk image that your desktop users will use.

Last September I wrote an article about the importance of a "stateless" desktop disk (which is important regardless of whether your users are running the desktop locally or remotely). Owning an application virtualization capability allows VMware to offer a more complete desktop delivery solution. ...

The bottom line is that it's no secret I think this is a brilliant move on VMware's part. (In fact I wrote "they might as well buy someone like ThinStall" in an article last October about whether VMware should focus more on applications.) What a great day in our industry!

Alessandro Perilli at virtualization.info: VMware Acquires Thinstall

Given the strong focus of Thinstall on Microsoft platforms, the acquisition seems to validate an important point, often emerging in surveys: large majority of virtual machines contain Windows guest OSes.

At the same time this acquition validates once and forever the fact that application virtualization is considered one the next mainstream technology for most major players ...