New technologies reduce storage costs, improve user experience and enable IT to rapidly provision and update multiple desktops from a single image.

VMware Inc., a provider of virtualization solutions from the desktop to the datacenter, today announced the general availability of VMware View 3, an advance in virtual desktop computing. With VMware View 3, the company claims that IT organizations can decouple a desktop from specific physical devices or locations to create a personalized view of a user's desktop, applications, and data  - called myView - that is accessible from almost any device, at any time. It claims that by hosting these virtual desktop images in the datacenter using the virtualization and management platform, VMware Infrastructure 3, VMware View 3 enables IT personnel to provision and manage virtual desktops simply, securely, and with lower operating costs.

The company articulates that its a step in its vClient Initiative, announced at VMworld 2008 in September, to solve the desktop dilemma. As described by VMware President and CEO Paul Maritz, the desktop dilemma is the business choice of whether to provide thick or thin clients for employees. Thick clients, or fully loaded PCs, give employees a rich set of applications in their desktop environment, but are a management nightmare because applications can be distributed across PCs that must be provisioned, updated, patched and secured individually. Thin clients are cheaper, more secure, and more cost-effective to manage, but traditionally have not been able to deliver the richness, flexibility, or compatibility of a thick client. The company adds that VMware View 3 solves this dilemma by combining the benefits of both approaches - delivering rich, personalized virtual desktops to any device (whether thick or thin), while simplifying management and securing endpoints with virtual desktops hosted in the datacenter.

"With VMware View 3, the most proven, feature-complete and widely deployed virtual desktop solution in the market today takes a major step forward. VMware is redefining what is possible with desktop virtualization," said Jocelyn Goldfein, vice president and general manager of VMware's Desktop Business Unit. "VMware View 3 introduces technologies that increase the scalability and richness of virtual desktops while reducing management time and costs. For example, the new VMware View Composer dramatically reduces storage consumption and increases the speed and flexibility of provisioning desktops. Our other new features such as virtual printing, multimedia redirection, offline desktop, and the brokering of Windows Terminal Services sessions, can provide end users with the best possible virtual desktop experience."