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Good news for the OpenSolaris community and others using Solaris in a home or non-commercial way… Virtual Bridges has announced a $69.99 license for home and non-commercial use, as compared to $149.99 for commercial use. The press release is here.

Here is the official quote from the press release:

“Virtual Bridges is pleased to announce this new pricing program for the OpenSolaris and home user communities”, said Jim Curtin, President and CEO of Virtual Bridges. “Win4Solaris Home is the perfect product for home and non-commercial users who have the need to run certain Windows applications but want to reduce the cost, complexity and security headaches of maintaining a separate Windows machine.”

Here is a quote from Scott McNealy just last month when asked the question: Do you still think the thin client will prevail?

Our Sun Ray thin client grew, year over year for the full year ended in June, 98 percent. It came out of the year in the fourth quarter growing at 102 percent. It might just be the fastest-growing product we have inside of Sun.

Win4Solaris aims to help that grow even faster! The need for Windows co-existence, at a competitive price, is key to winning over a world that is Windows-centric.

The nice thing about Win4Solaris and SunRay is that together this solution actually surpasses any other remote computing solution on the market (think Citrix or VMware) with respect to multi-media support, robustness, security and cost-effectiveness.

Virtual Bridges recently announced a 4.5 version of both Pro (workstation product) and Virtual Desktop Server (consolidated desktops and remote display) for both Linux and Solaris.

Here is the VDS announcement.

Here is the desktop announcement.

Both platforms should welcome this news as the need to run Windows applications seamlessly is not going away anytime soon. It is about time that organizations looked to aggressively leverage virtualization of desktops on non-Windows hosts.

Security, reliability and robustness are all hallmarks of Solaris and Linux over Windows. The only thing missing is the legacy applications and the fear that something new will come out that you will not be able to support. With Win4Lin or Win4Solaris you are not only legacy-proofing your environment, but you are future-proofing it as well.

The Thin Guy has done it again and created a really cool demo of USB over IP using Sun Ray, Digi and Win4Solaris. Check it out here.

I really like the way the biometric USB dongle toggles back and forth between environments based on which finger he authenticates with.

And iTunes on thin clients, way cool…

This looks nice…

I just have to comment on that Spurs-Cavs Game 4 last night… The Cavaliers are a painful team to watch. Missed shots, lost balls, turnovers… just when you think they have a chance, they lose the ball out of bounds. I am in no way a Cavs fan, and living in Austin, I certainly follow the Spurs and go to their games occasionally, but this was such a mismatch I could not help but root for the Cavs for no other reason than to see them at least earn some dignity beyond just reaching the Finals… It was like watching a train wreck… Congrats to the Spurs for beating Phoenix in the real championship series.

With all of the focus in the government on Information Assurance these days, Win4Solaris has come at a very opportune time. Solaris has a tremendous installed base in the US government. This is due to the robustness and security of the Solaris platform. With the introduction of Win4Solaris, the government gets the best of both worlds; the security and reliability of Solaris, together with the familiarity and ease-of-use of Windows applications. Perfect.

Win4Solaris Virtual Desktop Server and Win4Solaris Pro (Workstation version) are now available on the GSA Schedule.

Novell, Xandros and now Linspire… Who’s next?

The “high priests” are gathering at Google to try and resist the irresistible…  co-existence.

I am hoping that the initiative started by Novell and Microsoft emboldens users to assert their right to get the solutions that are most beneficial to their business. Interoperability, co-existence, common standards, all of these things make a users life more easy by reducing cost, complexity and fracturing of resources needed to support incompatible systems.

The Linux phenomenon is unique in my mind for the tenacity and zealotry of the wild-eyed elite holding onto their power under the battle cry of “purity”. Anything to do with Microsoft is impure in their minds and compromise is absolutely out of the question. There is something adolescent about their naivete.  For all of their idealism, they seem to be serving their own interests rather than those of the user/buyer. Their vision is fueled by revolution in a time when the market needs evolution. Until compromise and co-existence enter their vocabulary, they will be retarding the natural potential for infrastructure evolution towards the optimal solution - stable, secure, open operating systems that support existing investments in applications and business processes.

It is ok to want to change the world, but you have to be patient and confident that your solution will win out in the end without tantrums and fatwahs and rigid fanaticism.

After a lot of buzz and rumor, Win4Solaris has finally hit the streets as an officially GA and supported product. Here is the press release.

Here is the partner quote from Sun:

“The ability for Solaris to host Windows applications is important for our customers,” said Marc Hamilton, Vice  President, Solaris marketing Sun Microsystems. “Win4Solaris elegantly addresses this need in a way that complements both our Solaris workstations as well as our Sun Ray thin clients. Customers are very excited when they realize they can keep familiar applications and at the same time reduce the vulnerability and cost of their desktop environments.”

Here is the opening statement on the corporate blog… here

Virtual Bridges aims to help consumers, SMB and Enterprise customers bridge from Window to Linux and Unix platforms. The Linux product has hundreds of thousands of users. The Unix version is deployed in 13,000 McDonalds branches across the country. The Solaris version, just announced, has had 50,000 seats under evaluation in the pre-release phase.

The main difference between what Virtual Bridges does and VMware does is that Virtual Bridges focuses on users who want to run Windows. It is specialized and integrated in such a way as to make Windows an application in the native host environment. VMware on the other hand is targeted, on the desktop, at technical professionals who need to run multiple operating systems discretely on one box. It is a scaled down analog of what the server-on-server product does.

Besides allowing Unix and Linux users to run legacy Windows applications in the native host environment, Virtual Bridges also allows organizations to consolidate their Windows desktops onto cost-effective, secure, well-behaved Unix and Linux server infrastructure. Whether an organization wants to serve up a single application or a full Windows desktop, the Win4* line of products accomplish this in a very efficient and cost-effective way in comparison to Citrix or VMware’s Virtual Desktop infrastructure.

Watch this space for more on how Windows Desktop Virtualization and Consolidation is saving companies large amounts of time and money.