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Google, VMware Partner To Bring Windows Apps to Chromebooks

Google and VMware this week announced a deal in which Google's Chromebooks will get native support for VMware's Horizon View virtual desktop infrastructure (VDI) solution, allowing the laptops to run Windows desktops and Windows apps.

The two companies made the announcement Thursday at VMware's Partner Exchange conference in San Francisco. Their aim is to drive down the cost of VDI while encouraging enterprises to adopt Chromebooks as potential business machines.

"Google Chromebooks can save businesses about $5,000 per computer when compared to traditional PCs," said Amit Singh, president of Google Enterprise, in a VMware press release.

The details behind those cost savings weren't given in the release or at the conference, but there are cost savings to be had in hardware (with Chromebooks available for less than $200 apiece) and reductions in soft costs such as software and application licensing, maintenance and management in a virtualized environment.

The joint solution is available now as an on-premises service with the current Horizon View 5.3, but the plan is to eventually develop a solution that's fully cloud-enabled through VMware's Horizon DaaS either via VDI or Remote Desktop Services. Those services will be available through VMware or vCloud Service Providers before summer.

On a side note, VMware introduced a new mobile monitoring app for keeping tabs on the goings-on with one's vSphere infrastructure.

The vSphere Mobile Watchlist app allows for the creation of watchlists and alerts based on the inventory, health, and state of virtual machines. The app will suggest and offer access to VMware Knowledge Base articles based on the alerts that pop up and allow a limited number of operational controls to remedy situations.

For those issues that can't be fixed through the phone, the vSphere Mobile Watchlist app provides for the delegation of issues to other team members with better access.

The app is available for iPhones and Android phones through their respective stores.

About the Author

Kurt Mackie is senior news producer for 1105 Media's Converge360 group.

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