In May, I had the pleasure to announce Citrix Managed Desktops on the mainstage at Citrix Synergy, and today, not even three months later, I am thrilled to announce the general availability of this latest cloud service offering. This desktops-as-a-service (DaaS) solution is designed to be the simplest and fastest way to deliver Windows apps and desktops from Azure to any device.
Our teams have been hard at work, and we are excited to deliver this service on our planned schedule to our customers across the globe.
So why is Citrix now offering a desktops-as-a-service solution? It’s all about enabling customers and partners to deliver virtual apps and desktops from Azure while helping to simplify everyday IT administration tasks. In today’s business climate, it is important for organizations to be flexible to meet the demands of the business. Challenges such as mergers, acquisitions, seasonal workers as well as expansion of business globally lends to the need to deliver apps and desktops at any time, to any device, anywhere. Citrix Managed Desktops enables IT to deliver those apps and desktops on demand and pay only for what they use.
Our long-standing partnership with Microsoft has enabled Citrix to develop a state-of-the-art solution that is built on the strong backbone of Microsoft Azure and integrates with the latest Microsoft technology, Azure Virtual Desktop (formerly Windows Virtual Desktop). Today, August 26, we are offering our Citrix Managed Desktops solution with Windows Server operating system and Office 365 optimizations in anticipation of the new multi-session Windows 10 experience that will be available when Azure Virtual Desktop releases. Citrix Managed Desktops service is committed to Day 1 support for Azure Virtual Desktop and has been working in conjunction with Microsoft to make this plan a reality.
We caught up with Scott Manchester, Group Program Manager, Azure Virtual Desktop at Microsoft, who had this to say about our new service: “As Microsoft prepares for the release of Azure Virtual Desktop, it’s great to see partners like Citrix delivering new Azure-hosted services designed to harness the benefits of Azure Virtual Desktop on Azure. By extending Azure Virtual Desktop when available, Citrix Managed Desktop service will help our mutual customers and partners to realize the scalability and cost benefits of the new multi-session Windows 10 virtual desktop experience.”
And back at Synergy, Brad Anderson, Microsoft’s corporate vice president of Microsoft 365, joined me on stage to talk about the deep collaboration between the two organizations on this service:
Citrix has been recognized for our industry leadership in delivering robust tools that let you build, manage, and deliver a virtual desktop, but that was VDI. Today Citrix, in conjunction with our robust ecosystem of Citrix Partners, is taking that to the next level with a desktops-as-a-service solution where Citrix and our partner community are truly delivering a fully managed desktops solution. We designed Citrix Managed Desktops from the ground up to be a managed solution that enables its users to quickly deliver virtual apps and desktops in the simplest way possible. While our Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops remains the most robust virtualization service on the market, Citrix Managed Desktops is designed to deliver on several key areas:
- Simplicity — Citrix Managed Desktops is a turnkey service that delivers apps and desktops in the simplest way possible. Anyone, with any level of IT experience, can deliver virtual apps and desktops to their workers on demand.
- Managed Service — Citrix Managed Desktops provides everything a customer needs to deliver apps and desktops with minimal assembly. Citrix makes it easy to deliver the apps and desktops your workers need.
- High Performance — Citrix is the leading app and desktop virtualization provider largely based on our high definition user experience that no other service can match. Our HDX technology is designed to provide a pristine desktop image at every login, giving the user an experience as good or better than on a traditional laptop or desktop. Having the capability to offer non-domain joined and domain joined desktops from anywhere globally on any device at any time.
- Network Connectivity — Citrix also makes it easy to connect to your corporate resources such as Active Directory, file services, and more through VNET peering into your Azure subscription. To further simplify and optimize the delivery of virtual apps and desktops, Citrix will soon be offering SD-WAN for Citrix Managed Desktops. The integration with SD-WAN will provide our customers with the best end-user experience for all Windows, SaaS, and cloud applications, and an easy way to extend their networks into Azure — securely and reliably.
- Global Coverage — Citrix Managed Desktops will be available globally at launch, and Citrix Cloud customers in the U.S., the E.U., and Asia/Pacific control planes can take advantage of this new service. Starting today, customers can provision app and desktop workloads from four locations globally: U.S. East, U.S. West, West Europe, and Australia East. Citrix plans to grow this list soon. The workload locations combined with 11 global points of presence of Citrix Gateway service in Azure helps optimize the experience of HDX delivery.
Get started with a monthly subscription of Citrix Managed Desktops today and see for yourself. For more information visit www.citrix.com/daas.
For Citrix Investors
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