Symantec to release Endpoint Virtualization Suite in spring

Symantec on Tuesday unveiled Endpoint Virtualization Suite, its set of server-based tools for controlling and delivering laptop and desktop application environments through flexible online provisioning.

The suite includes Symantec Workspace Streaming, Workspace Corporate, Workspace Remote, Workspace Virtualization, and Workspace Profiles, used separately or in combination to support ways to stream applications to authorized laps or desktops.

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The suite will be available this spring and represents the development, integration, and rebranding of technology Symantec gained via the acquisitions of nSuite with its PrivacyShell products, AppStream, and Altiris. 

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"The usefulness in this is regaining control of the endpoint, the desktop specifically," says Enterprise Strategy Group analyst Mark Bowker about the suite, noting that similar emerging technologies from Citrix, Microsoft, and VMware are coming into view.

He points out that this approach of centrally managing the control of operating systems and the desktop environment through virtualization methods, while promising improved management, is still largely untested in the enterprise.

Symantec Workspace Corporate, says Brad Rowland, Symantec's director of marketing, supports portable user workspace management and is intended primarily for internal corporate use, such as for call centers, and supports single sign-on capabilities, including biometrics. Workspace Remote is oriented toward browser-based remote access and gateway security. The two programs can combine local and remote applications into a single workspace that maintains context as the user moves from machine to machine, with local printing management.

Rowland says Workplace Profiles can be used to separate underlying applications from critical data. "It allows you to take the user experience and make it portable in a thumb drive or out of the cloud," Rowland says.

Symantec Workspace Virtualization is basically the former Altiris Software Virtualization Solution intended to increase application stability, and supports multiple concurrent users with virtualized applications in environments that include Microsoft Windows Terminal Server, and Citrix, adding application isolation. It is priced at $46 per user.

Symantec Workplace Streaming (formerly AppStream) provides on-demand application streaming, allowing customers to use their industry standard MSI Windows Installer packages without repackaging, maintaining the MSI logic through deployment. It allows hardware type and context to be detected so customers can define user profiles appropriately.

Symantec Workspace Corporate and Workplace Remote are each priced at $189 per user, while Workplace Streaming costs $70 per user.

The streaming and server architecture in the Endpoint Virtualization Suite runs on the Windows 2008 Server and platform, and can make use of Active Directory and LDAP Server to establish user rights and permissions.

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