Saber-Rattling Intensifies In User Profile Virtualization As VMware Enters Market

Technology that virtualizes user profile data goes by many names, but one thing all vendors seem to agree on is that it's the key to jump-starting the long-awaited virtual desktop revolution.

On Thursday, 800-pound gorilla VMware made its entry to the space, in the latest sign that this once-sleepy market segment is crackling to life.

VMware is now going after vendors like AppSense, RES Software and Liquidware Labs, which all have been selling user profile virtualization for years. In recent weeks, executives from all three have penned blog posts saying, in essence, "Bring it on."

[Related: RES Software Hires Former Citrix Sales VP Monserrat As New CEO]

VMware has acquired two startups to fuel its push into user profile virtualization. Last year it bought CloudVolumes, a startup focused on delivering virtual apps to desktops, and then in February it acquired Immidio, which developed a Windows desktop virtualization management software product.

VMware is using Immidio as the basis for its VMware User Environment Manager product, which it launched into general availability this week. VMware is pitching the technology to Citrix customers as a better way to manage apps and end users.

"Workspace Environment Management is something that all customers can benefit from -- including customers running Citrix XenApp or XenDesktop," Harry Labana, vice president of end-user computing products at VMware, said in a blog post Thursday.

"With this offering, Citrix organizations can transform application and end-user management from a slow, cumbersome process into a highly scalable, nimble delivery mechanism that provides end-users with access to the right applications every time they log in," said Labana in the blog post.

VMware is selling UEM as a standalone product and bundled with some of its other end-user computing products. But sources told CRN that VMware salespeople are giving UEM away for free in desktop virtualization deals in order to seed the market.

A VMware spokesman told CRN Friday that UEM is included free of charge with its Horizon Enterprise offering. "With the inclusion of VMware User Environment Manager in VMware Horizon Enterprise, existing customers now have more reasons to upgrade to Horizon Enterprise, while new customers can obtain the full solution packaged as a single license of Horizon Enterprise," the spokesman said in an email.

User profile virtualization goes by many names, but it's now coming into vogue because of the mobile device boom and the growing number of remote workers. By virtualizing user data, organizations can give their users a personalized experience no matter what kind of device they're using.

"Profile management is a make-or-break for technology for end-user experience," said one solution provider that sells the technology, who spoke on condition of anonymity to avoid backlash from his other vendor partners. "It's not weird that people are paying attention to it, only weird that it's taken so long for this to bubble up the stack."

VMware's push into this space will draw more attention to user profile virtualization, and VMware is smart to go after Citrix customers that have a pressing need for it, Jed Ayres, senior vice president of marketing at AppSense, said in a blog post Thursday.

That said, AppSense has a more mature offering than VMware and Citrix, which just handle personalization. AppSense goes beyond that to include policy management, top notch performance, data analytics and other features, said Ayres in the blog post.

"There’s a big difference between introducing a new product or listing a feature on a data sheet and proving it works in large-scale production deployments in heterogeneous customer environments. What we do is not easy," said Ayres.

Meanwhile, RES Software has a UEM component in its Workspace Manager product that gives IT departments visibility into users and their data. The vendors has also added IT automation and self-service capability for end users to its portfolio in recent years.

RES Software earlier this month hired former Citrix vice president of sales Al Monserrat as its CEO. According to sources, Monserrat hasn't yet shown how he plans to compete with VMware and others in this space, but his savvy leadership is certain to raise the Dutch vendor's profile in the U.S. market.

Not to be outdone, Chris Akerberg, president and COO of Liquidware Labs, said in a blog post earlier this month that he thinks the flurry of vendor activity will help his company.

"You’ve probably been hearing a lot of noise about upcoming innovations from the key players in desktop technologies. All this noise, for us, is great news," Akerberg said in the blog post.

Liquidware Labs, founded in 2009, works with lots of VMware and Citrix customers and has doubled its business in the course of the past few years, according to Akerberg. "We haven’t been making noise, but we’ve been making some serious progress," he said in the blog post.

Whether or not these vendors manage to spark a virtual desktop boom remains to be seen, but one thing's for certain: Now that most of the low-hanging fruit in the virtualization market has been picked, this segment is finally going to start getting more attention.

PUBLISHED APRIL 24, 2015