10 Cool Vendors For AVD, Virtual Desktop Solution Providers

Stratodesk, Rimo3 and Rewst were among the standout vendors at NerdioCon 2024.

A thin, secure operating system for virtual desktop environments. A migration platform for increasing Azure Virtual Desktop and cloud PC use. And an automation vendor promising benefits for AVD provisioning and deprovisioning.

Stratodesk, Rimo3 and Rewst are among the vendors to make impressions this week in Punta Cana, Dominican Republic, during NerdioCon, an annual event by Azure management tools provider Nerdio.

Virtual desktops continue to be a hot market for solution providers even this far after the height of the global pandemic, with multiple solution providers telling CRN this week that customers recognize the reality of investing in virtual desktop infrastructure (VDI) to allow remote work options but also to recognize security benefits from the technology.

AVD, VDI Solution Providers

Krishna Kosgi, lead project engineer and project manager at Be Structured Technology Group, a Los Angeles-based Microsoft partner, told CRN in an interview that the enduring demand for remote work and hybrid has fueled demand for virtual desktop services such as Microsoft AVD – formerly known as Windows Virtual Desktop.

“If companies have an office, workers will want an option to work remotely,” Kosgi said. “Some businesses don’t even have an office anymore. So it’s good for those scenarios.”

The VDI market opportunity even captured the attention of Gartner late last year, with the research firm putting spend on desktop-as-a-service (DaaS) – defined as the provision of virtual desktops by a public cloud or service provider – at $4.6 billion in 2027, up from $3.1 billion in 2023.

Of course, this list would seem incomplete without mentioning recent innovations from Microsoft, the AVD maker itself, and Nerdio.

But while Nerdio is all-in on Microsoft, some of the vendors on this list also position their tools as helpful to users of rival technology from the likes of VMware and Citrix.

Read on for more vendors that might interest solution providers working with AVD and VDI.

Microsoft

Obviously, Microsoft is the creator of AVD, but the tech giant’s market leadership position in virtual desktop and desktop-as-a-service (DaaS) shouldn’t be understated despite only entering the market in 2019.

In September, Gartner ranked Microsoft among the leaders in DaaS not only due to AVD, but also Windows 365 and Microsoft Dev Box. Gartner highlighted the integration of Azure, Microsoft Intune and Windows to deliver Windows 10/11 Enterprise multisession and other exclusive DaaS capabilities.

The Redmond, Wash.-based tech giant has also innovated since the release of the Gartner ranking. On Feb. 1, Microsoft made Azure Virtual Desktop for Azure Stack HCI generally available (GA), with the promise of bringing “together the flexibility of an industry-leading cloud VDI service with the on-premises control you need to fit your unique business requirements.”

In November, Microsoft introduced a host of new Dev Box capabilities, including the ability to limit the number of dev boxes each developer can create within a project, Microsoft-hosted networks and Dev Box-compatible Docker Desktop images.

And for W365, Microsoft has been rolling out new features including the ability for administrators to configure alerts for Cloud PCs in Intune and cross-region disaster recovery. Disk encryption with “bring your own key” support for Cloud PCs is in preview and expected to start rolling out in April.

Microsoft has about 400,000 partners worldwide, according to the vendor.

Nerdio

During NerdioCon, the namesake AVD management tools vendor teased generative artificial intelligence (GenAI) assistants for scripted action generation, report creation, data analysis and other tasks among its new capabilities.

Other features either live or coming to Nerdio include reserve instances management, a unified application catalog and a “console connect” capability for remotely connecting to user sessions for support functions, CEO Vadim Vladimirskiy told the crowd at NerdioCon 2024.

The Chicago-based vendor is a member of CRNs 2024 Channel Chiefs. It has about 250 enterprise system integrator partners, according to Nerdio.

ControlUp

ControlUp positions its Real-Time DX and Edge DX offerings as allowing users to monitor Windows 365 Cloud PCs, AVD and other virtual desktop offerings for more efficient IT performance and faster issue resolution.

The San Francisco-based vendor’s products also work with VMware and Citrix, according to ControlUp. Users can leverage the vendor for hybrid work monitoring, historical data and analytics plus continuous virtual application and desktop testing, among other use cases.

In November, ControlUp unveiled new capabilities in its Digital Employee Experience (DEX) platform that provide users with an Azure DaaS cost analyzer. ControlUp is a member of CRNs 2024 Channel Chiefs.

Stratodesk

Stratodesk’s NoTouch operating system promises users a thin, secure OS for virtual desktop and cloud environments capable of running on older desktop hardware or the latest laptop, PC and even Raspberry Pi devices.

The San Francisco-based vendor’s offerings work with AVD, Citrix, VMware, Imprivata and other environments, according to Stratodesk. The OS is Linux-based with no hardware purchases needed. Stratodesk also positions its product as a hardware lifespan expander that can save on IT budget.

Stratodesk has about 350 channel partners worldwide and about 120 in North America, according to CRN’s 2024 Channel Chiefs. About 85 percent of its overall sales come through indirect channel and alliance relationships.

ThreatLocker

ThreatLocker boasts of protecting around 2 million endpoints with its platform, and its deployment capabilities cover a variety of virtual desktop environment scenarios.

The Orlando-based security vendor works with autonomous and independent virtual desktops, non-persistent virtual desktops and persistent virtual desktops, according to ThreatLocker. Its testing environment feature uses a VDI to allow administrators to evaluate approval requests quickly without the risk of running unknown applications in a production environment.

ThreatLocker is a member of CRN’s 2024 Channel Chiefs.

Rimo3

This technology upstart’s platform seeks to ease migration to not only Windows 11, but also cloud PCs, AVD, Intune and other Microsoft offerings.

Rimo3 – based in Las Vegas and founded in 2019 – offers a free application assessment to determine readiness for Windows 365, AVD and Windows 11 and drive Azure consumption revenue (ACR). The platform also assesses the effects of the migration on users, according to Rimo3.

For VMware users, Rimo3 can test and package applications in the App Volumes format for better deployment, according to the vendor.

Rimo3 also offers a partner program for resellers, consultants and other business models, with partners including XenTegra, ProArch and Computacenter.

NinjaOne

Remote monitoring and management (RMM) platform provider NinjaOne has a virtual machine (VM) monitoring and management offering that promises visibility into VMware and Hyper-V host servers, with details around uptime, manufacturer, server type, power, memory, disk use and other measures.

For Microsoft solution providers, NinjaOne positions itself as a way to get the most out of Microsoft Azure Resource Manager (ARM), which is used for managing and monitoring virtual machines (VMs), databases, storage accounts and other services.

NinjaOne is a member of CRN’s 2024 Channel Chiefs.

Intel

Intel offers a host of products aimed at virtual desktop use, and it has continued to grow its partnerships with multiple VDI vendors.

The Santa Clara, Calif.-based chipmaker’s vPro Enterprise for Windows OS, for example, aims to enable agile, flexible remote workforces when paired with AVD and other centralized, virtual desktop offerings, according to Intel.

Its data center graphics processing unit (GPU) Flex series for VDI is meant for unlocking open and key infrastructure and delivering user experience at scale. The series has support for most popular VDI offerings and promises software licensing savings with no additional licensing costs for virtualizing GPUs – plus no management of licensing servers for VDI deployment, among other benefits.

In January, Microsoft announced new AVD support for the public preview of DCesv5 and ECesv5-series confidential virtual machines (VMs), powered by fourth-generation Intel Xeon Scalable processors with Intel Trust Domain Extensions (TDX). The new support should allow more confidential workloads on the cloud without application code changes, according to Microsoft.

The new VMs are also up to 20 percent faster than third-gen Xeon VMs, according to Microsoft.

In November, VMware and Intel unveiled a collaboration that aims to accelerate artificial intelligence (AI) adoption and private AI enablement across data centers, public clouds and edge environments, capitalizing on VMware virtualization software use at the creation, processing and consumption of data, according to VMware.

Intel is a member of CRN’s 2024 Channel Chiefs.

Rewst

During NerdioCon 2024, Rewst CEO Aharon Chernin joined Nerdio’s CEO on stage to announce a new integration between the two companies.

Tampa, Fla.-based automation tools startup Rewst – founded in 2020 – has made 154 Nerdio actions natively available in its platform, giving Rewst users AVD provisioning and deprovisioning at onboarding and offboarding, automated incident response capabilities and the ability to schedule documentation updates among other actions, according to Rewst.

Rewst has about 500 channel partners worldwide and sees 100 percent of overall sales come through indirect channel and alliance relationships, according to CRN’s 2024 Channel Chiefs.

IGEL Technology

IGEL users can leverage the vendor for desktop roaming with not only AVD but also Citrix, VMware and Imprivata.

The Germany-based secure endpoint operating system vendor also suggests that users can reduce device power consumption by up to 49 percent by using IGEL with DaaS, VDI and software-as-a-service (SaaS) technologies.

In December, Citrix announced that its Device Posture service became available on IGEL to provide common customers with Zero Trust principle enforcement capabilities.

In November, IGEL and digital identity vendor Imprivata launched an integrated offering to allow multi-factor authentication (MFA) and single sign-on (SSO) for clinicians accessing virtual apps and desktops. The IGEL Agent for Imprivata OneSign Enterprise Access Management promises no-click access to AVD and W365 Cloud PC resources.

Igel has about 1,300 channel partners worldwide and about 300 in North America, according to CRN’s 2024 Channel Chiefs. It sees about 100 percent of overall sales through indirect channel and alliance relationships.