Symantec Endpoint Virtualization Transforms Workspace Management

Symantec Corporation, a global leader in providing security, storage and systems management solutions to help consumers and organizations secure and manage their information-driven world has announced Symantec Endpoint Virtualization Suite, designed to improve end-user productivity and lower the cost of managing endpoint devices.  By offering portable, on-demand user workspace management, Symantec Endpoint Virtualization Suite provides a comprehensive solution for creating and managing workspace elements and environments in traditional, virtual and mixed client computing models.  Symantec Endpoint Virtualization Suite is scheduled to be available in Spring 2009. 
 Symantec Endpoint Virtualization Suite allows customers to provision anything from traditional endpoints to full virtual endpoint workspaces based on standards that are hypervisor-, operating system- and hardware platform-agnostic.  The solution provides heterogeneous support across traditional endpoint and emerging end-user computing environments (such as server-based computing, virtual hosted desktops and client-side hypervisors).  Symantec Endpoint Virtualization Suite integrates leading endpoint virtualization technologies from the recent acquisitions of AppStream and nSuite and includes feature enhancements to other products in the portfolio.  Symantec Endpoint Virtualization Suite enables the separation of information from underlying IT infrastructure so that information can be managed easily, protected completely and controlled automatically.
 “Endpoint virtualization allows us to put end-user productivity at the center of the IT process,” said Ken Berryman, senior vice president, Strategy and Emerging Business, Symantec.  “By decoupling the user experience from the computing environment, we help make users immediately productive over the full range of endpoint technologies, thus allowing businesses to make the best use of their existing resources and reduce IT costs.”
 Symantec is changing the way software is managed, delivered and consumed at the endpoint, enabling user-based workspace management by offering an endpoint virtualization solution that includes application virtualization, streaming, resource brokerage technologies and new workspace profile management.   Symantec Endpoint Virtualization Suite offers customers multiple products including Symantec Workspace Streaming, Symantec Workspace Virtualization, Symantec Workspace Corporate and Symantec Workspace Remote.  In addition, Symantec Workspace Profiles is scheduled to add dynamic profile management to the solution. 
  “Symantec has entered the market strong with their vision to combine endpoint virtualization with the other elements of their portfolio,” said Michael Rose, Research Analyst, IDC. “By coming in at a higher layer on the stack, we see them focusing on cross platform management and offering a lot of value, especially for customers of their other endpoint control products, like DLP, endpoint management and their storage and security solutions.
 Symantec Workspace Streaming provides on-demand application streaming, optimizing software delivery and license management and thus reducing infrastructure costs.  It is the only product of its kind that allows customers to use their industry standard MSI (Windows Installer) packages without repackaging, maintaining the MSI logic through deployment.  Advanced streaming functionality allows an MSI file to be streamed directly to a virtual layer or to the base without virtualizing.  This new addition extends the unique functionality of MSI streaming.   In addition, flexible offline provisioning now allows hardware type and context to be detected, allowing customers to define unique mobile/standards and apply profiles appropriately.
 Intel Corporate Marketing Research, in combination with Lieberman Research, surveyed medium and large size business IT decision makers in the United States about their usage and planned usage of the emerging compute models.  They found “the percentage of total clients deploying application streaming is expected to grow by 25 percent in 2009.”
 “By integrating such features as Intel vPro and mobile-aware technologies in Symantec Endpoint Virtualization, Intel and Symantec are driving down IT costs and increasing user productivity,” said Prasad Rampalli, Intel vice president, Digital Enterprise Group, and director, End-User Platform Integration.  “This combination offers the benefit of centralized administration of client applications while providing users the performance and mobility of rich clients, allowing them to be as productive as possible. Symantec Workspace Virtualization (formerly Altiris Software Virtualization Solution) increases application stability and interoperability, regardless of how or where applications are delivered.  Symantec Workspace Virtualization eliminates application conflict, reducing the high cost of time and resource use for interoperability testing and accelerating application rollouts.  Customers using server-based computing models or virtual hosted desktops (VHD) from vendors like VMWare are offered additional flexibility.  Symantec Workspace Virtualization now supports multiple concurrent users with virtualized applications on Terminal Server and Citrix and extends its application virtualization architecture to include application isolation.  Virtualized applications can be customized easily for each user on the system.