HP introduced extended software offerings and deeper industry alliances that strengthen the industry’s broadest portfolio of virtual business technology solutions.
HP announced its full portfolio of Citrix-Ready thin clients and blade PC products is also now available with Citrix XenDesktop,TM as well as being certified by VMware, Inc. for compatibility with its VMware Virtual Desktop Infrastructure.

In addition, the company plans to expand its Remote Graphics Software (RGS) technology to provide one of the richest media experiences available among client virtualisation solutions. “Today’s news is simply the latest example of HP’s building momentum in the client virtualisation market, offering businesses a one-stop shop to meet their virtualisation needs with the most comprehensive portfolio of virtual client solutions, ease of management and the highest levels of IT security,” said Charl Snyman, vice president and general manager, Commercial Products, Personal Systems Group, HP EMEA.

HP’s broad remote client solutions portfolio of desktop virtualisation offerings, which include its industry-leading Thin Client lineup, Blade PCs and workstations, HP Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI), HP streaming clients with HP Image Manager, remote deployment, management software, and services. HP Remote Client Solutions help business customers dramatically reduce security risks and management and support costs by centralising computing hardware and sensitive data within the data center.
“IDC is witnessing an early ramp of desktop virtualisation adoption, which we expect will accelerate over the next 12-18 months,” said Michael Rose, Industry Analyst with IDC. “As companies consider adopting the technology, they will need to ensure a reliable and optimal user experience over the entire network. HP addresses these needs through a combination of its own IP and strategic partnerships, which combine hardware and software with industry credibility that will attract businesses looking for assurance before investing in this technology.”

Industry-leading Strategic Alliances Extend Offerings from the Desktop to the Datacenter

While HP’s thin clients and blade client solutions have long been deployed in Citrix environments, the company’s full thin client, blade PC and workstation portfolio has been designated “Citrix Ready” to ensure a simple and reliable Citrix experience.
In addition, HP thin clients are also certified for the new Citrix XenDesktop appliance program across the line, with the HP Compaq t5730 Thin Client delivering the XenDesktop “Appliance Plus” experience and verified Citrix Ready for Citrix Password Manager™, Citrix XenApp (Citrix Presentation Server™ 4.0 & 4.5) and Citrix XenDesktop.

Citrix XenDesktop enables organisations to virtualise Windows desktops in the datacenter and deliver them on-demand to office workers in any location. This provides a flexible and streamlined software architecture for users working from remote locations, ensuring high-speed application across virtual infrastructures. HP’s industry-leading thin clients and blade PCs make deploying XenDesktop environments easier, more secure and affordable, allowing companies to easily deploy Citrix XenDesktop and Citrix XenApp solutions with confidence.

“With the availability of XenDesktop, Citrix uniquely delivers virtual desktops that dramatically reduce the cost of ownership for IT, while providing a superior user experience for knowledge workers,” said Raj Dhingra, vice president and general manager, Desktop Delivery Group at Citrix Systems. “We are exciting to be demonstrating the results of our collaboration at Synergy 2008. The Citrix and HP relationship enables enterprises to quickly implement and manage a best-of-breed client virtualisation solution from the datacenter to the desktop.”

HP now also provides support for Citrix XenServer as well as the HP Select and Enterprise Edition of Citrix XenServer on select HP ProLiant and HP BladeSystem platforms. Using HP StorageWorks arrays and HP ProLiant Servers, Citrix customers can easily and reliably deploy new virtual machines and optimise their technology infrastructure.

Additionally, HP’s full portfolio of thin clients have been thoroughly tested and approved for the VMware certification program announced by the company. With this certification, customers can be assured that HP thin clients will be easy to deploy, manage and reliably deliver the flexible, open platform and security of the VMware virtual desktop platform.

Today’s expansion of the HP virtualisation portfolio also extends the recently introduced ProLiant iVirtualization joint venture with Citrix, VMware, and Microsoft, which users customers’ existing server management tools to integrate virtualisation technology directly into a broad range of HP ProLiant and BladeSystem platforms. As such, when a server is powered on, it is automatically and immediately configured into a fully capable server virtualisation environment. This enables companies to adopt server virtualisation with greater speed and simplicity.

Delivering full, rich multimedia experiences to large virtual desktop implementations
HP is also announcing plans to further invest in the advanced multimedia technology on which its HP Remote Graphics Software (RGS) was created within HP Labs. HP is now working with leading virtualisation software vendors to significantly enhance the rich multimedia experience accessed from thin clients or other remote devices.
In conjunction with partners, HP will be developing solutions for improved video performance, interoperability and scalability of large virtual desktop implementations serving business PC users.

HP RGS supports a remote, yet collaborative work model that helps overcome the distances barriers that can impede global organisations, delivering rich user experiences equivalent to a local desktop experience to remote client environments. With HP RGS, professionals can work together, from any physical location with Internet access, and make decisions in real-time with more secure access to multi-media content including flash animations, video, hardware accelerated 2D and 3D applications.
Rather than sending user data or graphics commands that grow with image complexity, the RGS software captures the desktop image of the remote or “virtual” system and transmits it over a standard network to a window on a local thin client using advanced image compression technology, specifically designed for text, digital imagery, and high frame-rate video applications.

“We believe the combination of HP thin clients and RGS is the ideal choice for a rich virtual desktop experience, regardless of the chosen virtualisation infrastructure, and we want to ensure customers can take advantage of this solution with whichever infrastructure best fits their business needs,” said Snyman.