VMware Unveils Workplace Suite and NVIDIA Partnership For Chromebooks 60
Gamoid writes At VMworld today, VMware introduced the Workplace Suite, a platform for securely delivering applications and content across desktops and mobile devices from the cloud. The really cool part, though, is a partnership with Google and NVIDIA to deliver even graphics-intensive Windows applications on a Chromebook. From the article: "The new VMware Workplace Suite takes advantage of three existing VMware products: Tools for application, device, and content management as well as secure cloud file storage that comes from the January acquisition of enterprise mobile management company AirWatch; VMware Horizon for desktop-as-a-service; and brand-new acquisition CloudVolumes for app delivery. "
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Right. It was a dream before we realized how much we'd be nickeled and dimed once the providers know we can't get what we need locally.. then it became a nightmare. It's amazing how quickly people forget.
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I'd still rather own the copies outright than 'rent' them repeatedly and get low quality streams. Gmail is cheaper in dollars, yes, but not in terms of privacy or access. Google apps are also a lot less capable than ms office, and a lot less secure.
So you want to trade convenience for control.. This is a popular trend these days. If these choices become the only ones, giving up control of your data to remote hosts and providers will result in the same kinds of shit that goes on with identity fraud, from bo
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You can download them as a Microsoft document. If the formatting is off, then just blame it on being a different version of Office. Everyone in business knows Microsoft Office is only partially compatible across product generations. In fact, I've wasted over 12 hours because an important Excel function stopped working correctly in 2013 (or possibly earlier), and I still have no fix.
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You can go back a little further. We used to call this 'mainframes and terminals'. There's a reason why we got away from it. Lots of them in fact.
Hmmm .... (Score:3)
Why does this sound like remote desktop to me?
Just sayin'.
Re:Hmmm .... (Score:5, Insightful)
Because it is. What they're doing is selling remote desktop as a service. Rather than your windows machine, they're offering a windows machine. It's not new, not as a technology, nor explicitly as a service.
But sometimes all you want is useful.
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I would argue that 'a' windows machine is less useful than 'your' windows machine because the latter offers you full rights while the latter does not.
In this era of egregious NSA and government offenses towards our liberty, we really shouldn't have such enthusiasm for doing all our computing remotely on some fortune 500's remote machines. You can almost guarantee that such hosting companies will be compromised by NSLs.
I'd rather keep my data as private as possible, running my own copies of software on my o
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*while the *former* does not, sorry.
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In this era of egregious NSA and government offenses towards our liberty, we really shouldn't have such enthusiasm for doing all our computing remotely on some fortune 500's remote machines.
It isn't about doing all your computing there. Most of your private stuff is pretty mundane and can be accomplished on even the lowest end hardware locally but if I want to run CAE simulations from my chromebook then this certainly sounds preferable to lugging around 5kg of expensive hardware that is virtually unused 95% of the time.
The problem is this absolutist view of cloud computing, you do realize that it isn't an "all or nothing" proposition don't you?
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It's the high performance stuff that I want local. I don't want to pay the exorbitant prices for hosting, storage, bandwidth, and renting of applications, esp the high performing ones, which will use more of everything. If it becomes SOP, the ASPs and ISPs will jack up the rates knowing people will have no choice. Also, the laws of physics will make this laggy as hell. The low performance stuff is mundane, but I still would not want that stored on a remote host.
The problem is this absolutist view of cloud computing, you do realize that it isn't an "all or nothing" proposition don't you?
Yup. It's proponents don't.
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It's the high performance stuff that I want local.
Like what for example?
I don't want to pay the exorbitant prices for hosting, storage, bandwidth, and renting of applications
From what I've seen the prices generally aren't "exorbitant" by any means.
If it becomes SOP, the ASPs and ISPs will jack up the rates knowing people will have no choice.
Yeah that argument has always been used as a scare tactic, over the years I've been doing much more stuff online (larger email attachments, remote desktop, remotely accessing my NAS, streaming videos) and these days I get orders of magnitude more data allowance a hell of a lot cheaper than I ever did before.
Also, the laws of physics will make this laggy as hell.
Make what laggy as hell? Remote desktop - which is what this is - works pretty well. And this is just a rem
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This is something that Citrix has been doing for a while now, and it's funny to see that when VMW even go so far as to blatantly rip off the name of the product (which by the way is Workspace Suite, not Worplace Suite), they can claim to be innovative and people actually believe it.
Oh well, not like that's never happened before.
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One concludes that you have not heard of RemoteFX and multimedia redirection then because the basic premiss of your comments is factually incorrect. Now VMwares solution might be better than Microsoft's but both do the same thing.
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But sometimes all you want is useful.
Holy shit, reed... that's the third intelligent thing I've seen you post in as many days; what gives?! ;)
No more "Cloud", please (Score:2)
I hope it dies down... (Score:4, Insightful)
It is a market segment that is seeing growth, and the hype machine has gone into overdrive under the assumption that anything that grows will grow indefinitely overtaking anything it conceivably could in its path.
The reality like all other times before is that it might get more adopted than it should before receding to the appropriate amount as it plateaus as the hype gets done. Thin clients have been around for ages even as the hype behind them has erupted and died out multiple times. They clearly have their role but it is clearly not the end-all, be-all that these companies bill it as.
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Re:No more "Cloud", please (Score:4, Interesting)
HIPAA, PCI, Sarbanes Oxley, Et. al. I'm seeing more and more call to implement ways to control data in the age of bring-your-own-device and mobile workforces. If a company can let a user work from the coffee shop but still keep the actual data inside the datacenter, then a thin-client solution becomes more and more attractive.
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If it helps, you can replace "Cloud" with "Server cluster".
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I don't know about you, but this is generally how I've always worked when I WFH.
I have my desktop at work. The company provides a great laptop, that I simply used to VPN and remote desktop into my work desktop.
I don't have fiber. Just a regular cable connection.
This kind of service is definitely doable.
The obvious question becomes... what happens IF the internet goes down. I think this really depends on your work place. But in many places, the work simply shuts down anyways if you have no internet or networ
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Speak for yourself. I LIKE having a 200$ laptop that I can throw in the trash whenever I want. I don't have to keep backups anymore. When I open a document at the same time as someone else, we can each see the other's cursor and edits in real time.
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Enough. No, I do not want "Cloud" services, thanks.
So don't use them. Last I checked, no-one was being forced to do so.
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But this is exactly the problem: So far no one is forced to use. But for how long?
What's your theory on why you would be forced to use them?
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Oh come on, Microsoft couldn't even get rid of the start menu from Windows without a backlash so large were forced to put it back in in the next version and you're actually suggesting vendors would force every desktop and laptop to be always connected to the internet for them to work and that users would accept that?
Stop spreading FUD, you're just fear-mongering.
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Except the GP's argument does indeed apply to the Adobe Cloud, today.
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Enough. No, I do not want "Cloud" services, thanks.
So don't use them. Last I checked, no-one was being forced to do so.
Yet.
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If ever.
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So don't use it. Why does it have to be an either/or situation? If you need your desktop, continue using it.
This service is more for those who have a desktop only because they need to run something on it. You know, like how some people ran Windows just to play a video game. Or fo
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Enough. No, I do not want "Cloud" services, thanks. I want my good old desktop with local applications that do not need be connected to the internet 24/7 to work, not everyone have a fiber connection available all the time for this.
I was about to moderate but I couldn't resist to say that Slashdot moderators should be given a new mod tag called, "GOML" or "Get off My Lawn" because that's what this is lol.
Nothing is stopping people writing desktop applications. Are you just annoyed that people are choosing cloud services out of convenience?
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No. My fear is that they end up trying to implement the "cloud" in anything and everything just because it's "cool", no matter the consequences. Just imagine: Windows depending on the cloud to work, Linux too, Eclipse refusing to work unless you have a connection all the time with a cloud, Photoshop or GIMP refusing to save your images in any other place than a cloud, W
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Just imagine: Windows depending on the cloud to work, Linux too, Eclipse refusing to work unless you have a connection all the time with a cloud, Photoshop or GIMP refusing to save your images in any other place than a cloud, Word or LibreOffice refusing to save your files because you are offline. Everyone embarking on the cloud hype without worrying about what happens when you lost your connection.
Linux, Eclipse, GIMP and LibreOffice are all FOSS, even if that did happen - and for some reason (maybe you can come up with one because I can't) nobody considered the prospect of offline use - then you could just change them. So there you go, crisis averted, you don't have to fear anymore.
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Look, search, followed closely by email, is clearly the most powerful way to data-mine you.
The applications you run are almost useless noise in comparison to your interests and correspondence. I don't doubt that they'd monitor it, but the cash-money here comes from getting people to buy chromebooks. Even if those, in turn, are about spying on you by getting you to use google search and gmail.
And like most VMWare things.... (Score:3, Interesting)
Is heavily marketed and works like absolute dog shit.
Yes, they have a great hypervisor. The rest of their products? Total, and utter shit. They can't compete on so many fronts they are running to provide anything with "Cloud" in it so people buy it. vCloud Automation Center. AirWatch. CloudVolumes. Horizon.
It's going to be interesting to watch a company who sat on its laurels while the cloud rush started and now is running to try to catch up.
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Just as it pertains to cloud, really. Their offerings are pretty terrible and far behind others in the space. If you're still in a datacenter with physical equipment, it's still a great player.
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"cloud" and "securely" do not go together (Score:2)
This merely enables the NSA and other bad actors to not even have to break into your computer anymore.