4 Key Points For Partners In Dell EMC's VDI Product Blitz

Transforming Workforces

Dell EMC's Cloud Client unit is introducing a new line of appliances, PCs, operating systems and management software, and the company said the channel stands to realize a significant opportunity with the new products.

The new roster includes a budget-priced hyper-converged infrastructure appliance for VDI deployments at small and midsize businesses and midmarket companies, as well as a new mobile thin-client device, a new thin-client operating system and a new Wyse Management Suite to tie it all together.

"With more and more channel partners facing customers who have their workforce transforming, this is an ideal time to go back and take another look at VDI," said Jeff McNaught, vice president of Dell EMC Cloud Client Computing. "More of their customers need a solution that securely delivers applications to users that could work from anywhere. We've made it less expensive and easier than ever to install a fully modern VDI installation, and these new tools make it easier than ever to maintain and manage that. It just got a lot faster, easier and less expensive to do this."

Here are four key aspects of the new offerings from Dell EMC.

Fixing The Gap

Called the Dell EMC XC Xpress Appliance for VDI, the system is engineered to support between 100 and 500 users and will cost about $100 per seat when it hits the market July 20, said McNaught. Dell EMC already sells the XC for VDI, but that product is designed to support hundreds of users, up to tens of thousands of users. "We thought we had a gap in our product line, and we're fixing that with this new product," McNaught said, adding that the existing XC for VDI has been a channel success. At an average of about $100 per seat, the XC Xpress for VDI is about 30 percent less than the standard XC for VDI appliance, which are based on Nutanix hyper-convergence software and Dell EMC PowerEdge servers.

Wide Latitude

The Latitude 3480 Mobile Thin Client starts at $799 and is optimized for Windows 10 IoT Enterprise software. It has the ability to connect to virtual desktop software including Citrix, Microsoft RDS and VMware Horizon. The machine also carries the results of a Dell partnership with Cylance. They're optimized for artifical intelligence and machine learning, and capable of stopping 99.6 percent of all malware, including zero-day malware. The Latitude 3480 is aimed at companies with users who are mobile. It provides a protected file system so users' data isn't on the device, making the devices sharable. McNaught said Dell has had success with thin clients in health care, where on-call doctors can use them to securely gain access to electronic medical records while remaining HIPAA-compliant, and in the oil and gas industry, where users are exploring the wilds in search of resources.

Wyse Up

ThinOS 8.4 is the latest version of the Wyse thin-client operating system introduced in 2000. Version 8.4 supports VMware's Blast Extreme remote connection protocol, as well as Citrix HDX RealTime for better communications, video and multimedia performance. McNaught said version 8.4 is the company's most virus-resistant thin-client operating system ever. And that's saying something. Introduced in 2000, no ThinOS customer has ever reported a successful attack or data breach, McNaught said.

Management Material

Dell is introducing the Wyse Management Suite, which replaces the existing Wyse Device Manager and Cloud Client Manager. McNaught said the new tool can be installed in less than five minutes compared with the hour it could take to set up Wyse Device Manager. The new manager is available in a free Standard version or a Pro version on a $20-per-seat, per-year subscription basis. McNaught estimates that about 20 percent of customers are a fit for the Pro version. "It's a very fast, easy tool for admins to deploy and manage a whole fleet of thin clients, but without the complexity typically associated with thin-client management," McNaught said.