Citrix aims to Dazzle with self-service application installation

Stephen Withers
Thursday, 12 November 2009 00:35

IT Industry - Strategy

Citrix's plans to make self-service part of the enterprise IT culture include a mechanism that makes it as easy for employees to add a new application to a corporate desktop as it is for them to install an extra app on their iPhones.

That's desktop in the metaphorical sense, not as in a hardware category. Delivering desktops as an on-demand service "can make a dramatic change," Citrix corporate vice president and general manager, desktop virtualisation, Raj Dhingra told a media briefing.

A Citrix utility called Dazzle uses a vaguely iTunes-like interface to present the applications in the corporate catalogue.

Key to this approach is the way Citrix's desktop virtualisation strategy separates the operating system, applications and user profiles, combining them dynamically when a user starts a new session. So when a user selects a new application through Dazzle, that program is added to the 'recipe' for that individual's desktop.

Support staff are therefore freed from managing multiple system images to suit the needs of different groups of employees, and at the same time those employees don't face the complexity of a desktop cluttered with applications they never use - or having to put in a support ticket requesting an extra application and then waiting for an administrator to get around to doing the job.

"Users are smart [and] they need to get things done," observed Simon Crosby, chief technical officer for Citrix's virtualisation and management division..

Dazzle's release is scheduled for mid December.

Stephen Withers travelled to Budapest as the guest of Citrix.