Endpoint Virtualisation: Symantec strikes back

Alex Zaharov-Reutt
Wednesday, 06 August 2008 14:57

Business IT - Technology

Ken Berryman, vice president of Endpoint Virtualization at Symantec is, as you’d expect, excited and saying that: “The real promise of endpoint virtualization is improving the end-user experience while helping to lower the cost of managing endpoint devices.

He continued, saying: “Symantec’s strategy is to help enable a truly dynamic endpoint where applications and information are delivered to any computing environment in a seamless manner. IT organisations should have the confidence to leverage the full power of traditional and virtual computing environments to maximise resources and reduce complexity.”

The nSuite technologies will operate in conjunction with Symantec’s Altiris Software Virtualization Solution Professional, which Symantec says “currently includes streaming and virtualization technology from Altiris and AppStream to provide faster, easier, and more manageable application consumption.” 

Explaining the capabilities further, Symantec says its technology “isolates applications and data from the base operating system allowing customers to instantly add, remove or reset applications on a Windows desktop, completely avoiding conflicts between applications or even between different versions of the same application” while also working “on-demand” across “LAN, WAN or consumer PCs in home environments”.

Virtualisation has its benefits: Symantec promises to help “customers resolve application conflicts, streamline software repairs, and deliver software on-demand all while maintaining the typical end-user application experience.” 

This means Symantec is claiming “desktop performance” for the virtualised desktop of OS and apps, which is the holy grail for virtual application delivery, because users definitely know and complain when hosted or remotely access apps lag thanks to bandwidth issues or technology limitations.

You also get the usual “lower total cost of ownership” claims, and Symantec is no different, saying it “helps customers reduce costs and improve agility by leveraging virtualization technology to provide the management infrastructure customers require across heterogeneous virtual and physical environments.” 

Just how successful its new solution is at gaining new customers will be interesting to watch, as will the reactions of VMware, Citrix and the rest, especially given that the advancements in enterprise virtualisation herald an ever improving consumer virtualisation experience, too.

The world has never been virtually better, with a virtual certainty that the best is yet to come.