VMware lands on the iPad
I’ve talked about remote desktop software in the past, but there are dozens of various providers and methods out there. RDP, Teamviewer, VNC etc. These services access existing computers though, and remotely controls them. A more common solution int he corporate world is to have servers that host virtual machines which can then be accessed from other computers. This is a common way to access corporate computers using non-corporate computers, making everything more secure as nothing is stored on the laptop/whatever.
Citrix is one of the providers of such software, and they’ve had software out for a while. It’s not the full virtual computer experience though, as everything is a lot more iPad optimized than many would like, with custom skins on top of Windows applications. Today though, WMwave released their client software for the iPad, and that one has the full desktop environment alongside some iPad features to make the whole thing more user friendly (without actually messing with Windows itself). The app itself is free, but since this requires a server running VMware software it’s still not something that you just go out and install for the sake of it- instead this is serious corporate software, and yet another item to add to our list of ways you can make your tablet productive. I fight an ongoing fight to rid people of the thought of tablets as toys, and software like this definitely helps that along. If you’re someone who works at a place where VMware is used for virtual machines, this is a seriously big deal and one of those apps that can really make a difference in selling the iPad to corporations. The Blackberry Playbook is coming soon and RIM naturally hopes that their vast array of corporate customers will flock to the device, but it might already be too late when software like this is available on Apple’s “toy”.
