Softricity, Tacit extend application virtualization

Desktop virtualization software vendor Softricity and remote office IT provider Tacit Networks are teaming up to provide customers with a combined bundle of two of their products, the companies announced Monday. The as yet unnamed bundle aims to facilitate access by users in branch offices to virtualized, on-demand Windows applications.

"It's a really nice match," Noah Breslow, vice president of marketing at Tacit Networks, said in a recent phone interview. "It's an end-to-end Windows-based solution. What we really do is branch office in a box."

The bundle will bring together the Softricity Desktop virtualization streaming software and Tacit Networks' Ishared application acceleration technology so that the Softricity software can run across a Tacit-enabled network, Breslow said. The two companies are certifying the combined product which is available worldwide Monday.

Softricity's software enables a user in a remote location to virtually access his or her company's centrally-run Windows applications. Instead, Softricity streams only the code required to run the applications to the user and has the code execute in a secure cache.

Tacit Networks' technology optimizes and accelerates data over a WAN (wide area network) so Softricity users will be able to access the centralized Windows applications in real-time as though the applications were installed on their own machines. Using the combined product, an IT administrator will be able to immediately synchronize applications from a central server to all branch offices and can ensure that updates and security patches replicate across all the company's locations at the same time. The most recently accessed applications will be cached on Tacit Networks' Ishared Remote appliances.

As well as certifying interoperability between their products, Softricity and Tacit Networks have also agreed to provide joint sales, marketing and support for the bundle.

"This is not assigned as an exclusive agreement," David Greschler, co-founder and vice president, corporate marketing at Softricity, said in a recent phone interview. "The technology by default makes it exclusive [since] no one else is turning applications into pieces of data."

The tie-up came into being four months ago prompted by a customer in Denmark. The customer had seen both the Softricity and Tacit Networks products and suggested to a local reseller that the two companies should work together, according to Greschler. He declined to name the Danish customer.