Microsoft announces Vision and Strategy to Accelerate Virtualization Adoption, including Vista Home and Premium Editions
Thanks to Mark Parris for bringing this to my attention.
Mary J Foley wrote on Jan 21st about how Microsoft has lifted its ban on enabling Windows Vista Home and Premium in virtual machine environments
Here are a few of the key announcements:
Desktop virtualization alliance with Citrix. Microsoft and Citrix will co-market a broad portfolio of new client computing offerings so that customers have simple, flexible and low-cost client computing options. These offerings will be based on Windows Server 2008 and Windows Optimized Desktop solutions, extended with Citrix’s XenDesktop and Presentation Server products and managed by System Center. Microsoft and Citrix will work together to help ensure the Citrix XenDesktop connection broker works well with Windows Optimized Desktop solutions. More details on this and other areas in which Microsoft and Citrix have expanded their alliance are available at https://www.microsoft.com/presspass.
New Microsoft Virtualization Solution Accelerators. To help customers evaluate, plan, secure and deploy Microsoft virtualization technologies across desktops and datacenters, Microsoft introduced four new Virtualization Solution Accelerators that will be available with the Windows Server 2008 launch in February. This set of free guidance resources and tools can help customers effectively plan and deploy virtualization technologies, including Windows Server 2008 Hyper-V, Windows Server 2008 Terminal Services and Microsoft Application Virtualization. Details can be found at https://www.microsoft.com/technet/solutionaccelerators.
Increased licensing flexibility with Windows Vista. For businesses, Windows Vista Enterprise Centralized Desktop provides unique licensing and flexibility to run Windows in virtual machines on servers and access them from either PCs or thin clients. The annual subscription to Windows Vista Enterprise Centralized Desktop is now an estimated retail price of $23 per desktop for rich clients covered by Software Assurance for Windows Client. For consumers, Windows Vista Home Basic and Windows Vista Home Premium are now licensed for use in a virtual machine environment, and the updated end-user license agreement is available at https://www.microsoft.com/about/legal/useterms/default.aspx.
Microsoft Office system support for Microsoft Application Virtualization. Microsoft announced today that the 2003 and 2007 versions of the Microsoft Office system are supported when running in both Microsoft Application Virtualization 4.5 and SoftGrid Application Virtualization 4.2. This support enables customers to run multiple versions of Office on the same device side by side, easing and accelerating the deployment of Office, reducing total cost of ownership, and enhancing mobility and business continuity for millions of information workers. Customers can learn more at https://www.windowsvista.com/optimizeddesktop.
You can read the full press release here
To get detailed information about our products, visit https://www.microsoft.com/virtualization.