After much speculation VMware has acquired RTO Software, one of the few companies in the presentation virtualisation market that are focused on the so called persona management.
Quite an interesting move considering some of the technology is OEM’d to Citrix through the TScale product set.
Both VMware and Symantec OEM’ed the RTO Software flagship product, Virtual Profiles.
Now VMware has confirmed the acquisition of most RTO Software assets, which will become part of the company Desktop Business Unit.
So what does the software do?
It seamlessly virtualises, caches and synchronizes a desktop user's roaming profile, while improving both the performance and data integrity of the profile. When a user logs on, instead of monolithically delivering the entire user profile and making the user wait for all of it, Virtual Profiles performs a "just-in-time" delivery. Windows thinks the entire profile is present, however the contents of each segment or file is brought down and subsequently cached when accessed. When files are updated and closed, Virtual Profiles automatically synchronizes the files with the profile server, maintaining data integrity across user sessions in real-time and speeding up logoffs.
This was really missing from View and is a shred move by VMware to deliver an end to end desktop solution.