For a limited time VMware offers you 25% off the list price for a 500-pack of View Premier. The promotion starts effective at 01. August 2011 and is running unti 15th December 2011. It’s available to commercial, academic and government end-user customers. Please check this website for more information on eligibility. The 500-pack is only available in North America. In EMEA and APAC you can purchase the 250 pack and you’ll receive 18% discount off the list price. The promotion is limited to 1 order per customer. Check the full terms and conditions here.

The following SKUs are associated with the promotion:

• VU4-PR500-PRO
• VU4-PR500-APRO
• VU4-PR500-FPRO
• VU4-PR250-PRO
• VU4-PR250-APRO
• VU4-PR250-FPRO

The View Premier Bundle includes the lastest versions of:

• VMware View Manager with VMware View Composer
• VMware ThinApp (client and packager)
• VMware Workstation
• VMware vCenter
• VMware vSphere for Desktops

If you want to know more about the promotion please check the FAQ pages.

This morning I found an interesting document when I was checking my RSS feed. It’s the ThinPrint Engine for VMware View Quick-Installation Guide. As you may know there is an free implementation of ThinPrint’s .Print Engine in VMware View but you can extend the functionality if you want. For example you can integrate your View Environment in the ThinPrint management Server. What you need for that is the ThinPrint Engine for VMware View.

Link: Cortado/ThinPrint

A few weeks ago VMware announced the new vSphere 5 version and with that they started a new licensing model based on the VRAM of virtual machines. VMware now announced some changes in the vSphere licensing. Raj Mallempati, Director, Product Marketing, End User Computing yesterday also updated the article on the EUC blog. Check it out for the changes.

Link: VMware EUC Blog

The VMguru.nl guys have published a brilliant article about Windows 7 licensing in a VMware View infrastructure. The article covers SA, VDA, RUR, KMS and loads more. Check this article to get more information on the Windows 7 licensing. Great work!

Check out this blog post on the VMware End User Computing Blog and you’ll learn more about the new VMware View Android client! The Android Client will be available from the App Market today. Here just a few features included in the version.

A new look and feel – The View Client for Android features the NEW blue look and feel of the VMware View clients!

Multiple broker support – If you have more than one VMware View broker in your organization, you can can easily access your desktop from all of them via the Android client

Desktop Shortcuts – Quickly connect with as many as four recent desktop via shortcuts

Virtual trackpad – Control your desktop on a granular level just like you would control the mouse on a laptop

Custom keyboard toolbar – Super easy access to all of the special keys not found on the Android default keynboard

Honeycomb 3.x support – Made from the ground up for the new generation of Android tablets

Custom gestures – Invoke keyboard, scrolling, etc are as easy as ever and simple to use

VMware View Security Server support (best experience) – No need to have VPN when you use VMware View Security Server

Background tasking – Switch between apps on your tablet and come right back

Two days ago VMware announced the new version of vSphere which also comes with a new licensing model which is based on the vRAM. This is the first cloud licensing model but in case of VMware View you’ll still be able to license your desktops per concurrent connection. VMware also has a new SKU for a vSphere Edition especially for hosting desktops. As others already have written great articles about that today I’ll not start a new post but refer you to one. Check Think Loud for a summary.

Thanks to Angelo Luciani for bringing this webcast up on Twitter. Please join Ridwan Huq in the webcast: Quantifying the Business Value of VMware View.

[VMware Webcast] Quantifying the Business Value of VMware View – Wed, July 13, 2011, 9:00 AM PDT – http://goo.gl/zpCLc #VMwareView

Link: VMware Webcast Registration

Join the VMware VDI experts for a 9-part bootcamp training series. Partners and Customers can get an in-depth look at how to successfully roll out and optimize virtual desktops and applications within their environments.

Join the experts each day for everything you need to know, including:

Design Considerations Guidelines for VMware View – Overview

• Speaker – John Dodge, Sr. Manager PSO Services, VMware
• Overview of the technical considerations to keep in mind while you’re designing a View environment

Storage Deep Dive – Considerations and Best Practices

• Speaker – Jim Yanick, Sr. Systems Engineer, VMware
• How to design your storage infrastructure to fit your environment
• Sizing and workload considerations

Network Considerations and Best Practices

• Speaker – Shannon McFarland; Consulting Engineer for Data Center technologies and Enterprise IPv6 design on Cisco’s Consulting Engineering team in the Office of the CTO, Cisco
• Network requirements for LAN and WAN
• Bandwidth requirements deep dive
• Security considerations – Security Server, AV, Encryption, Authentication

Optimizing the Base Image for VMware View

• Speaker – Todd Dayton, Staff Product Manager, Desktop Product Management, VMware
• How to build and tune your desktop image
• User and workload considerations
• OS specific tips (XP, Win7)

Delivering Applications

• Speaker – Heath Doer, Sr Systems Engineer, VMware
• Packaging and updates (applink and appsync)
• Best practices-storage, image management and application deployment
• Application migration, application conflict and compatibility

PCoIP Implementation Overview and PCoIP Tuning Best Practices

• Speaker – Stuart Robinson, Director of Strategic Marketing and Business Development, Teradici
• Speaker – Chuck Hirstius, PSO, WW Advanced Services, VMware
• How to optimize PCoIP for different types of workloads
• How to optimize for LAN, mobile and remote users
• Bandwidth requirements

Automating View 4.5 with Powershell

• Speaker – Tom Elliot, Sr. MTS, Enterprise Desktop, VMware
• Introduction to View PowerCLI
• Setting up an environment and basic tasks
• Creating your own scripts
• Integrating with vSphere

Leveraging Security Server for PCoIP

• Speaker – Mark Benson, View Architect, Enterprise Desktop, VMware
• Introduction to Security Server

VMware View’s Reference Architecture

• Speaker – Mac Binesh, Sr. Technical Marketing Manager, Enterprise Desktop, VMware
• Review of RA for stateless desktops
• Description of test environment, equipment and lab results

You can also register to receive a FREE e-book which is a collation of all of the presentations used during the bootcamp.

Link to the communities page: http://communities.vmware.com/community/vmtn/desktop/view/bootcamp/

Link to the e-book registration page: http://info.vmware.com/content/12284_BootCamp_View_REG

The Tolly Group has published a new document about VMware View 4.6 vs. Citrix XenDesktop 5. This time, the document describes the implementation and maintenance.

Here’s the abstract:

As Desktop Virtualization technology matures, the latest versions of VMware View and Citrix XenDesktop represent an evolution in the Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI) solutions towards ease of management and workflow efficiency, while aiming to deliver a rich user experience that is closer to using a physical PC. VMware’s PC over Internet Protocol (PCoIP) and Citrix’s HDX technologies make advances towards delivering smoother multimedia experience comparable to a physical PC. While Citrix XenDesktop 5 introduced several improvements – such as Machine Creation Services (MCS) and Desktop Studio – for creating and managing virtual desktops, VMware View 4.6 continues to offer a significantly simpler management and administration workflow using a single management interface. In contrast XenDesktop 5 continues to require the use of multiple interfaces – Desktop Studio, Provisioning Services Console, Active Directory, etc.. Combining these usability advantages with the lower licensing costs for a 1000 user deployment, View 4.6 delivers savings in both acquisition and ongoing administration costs over XenDesktop 5.

Link: Tolly Group

That was a surprise when I watched the VMware Lab Video from Brian Madden’s BriForum 2011 in London. My colleagues already showed a quick demo of the VMware View Client for Android tablets. It has exactly the same gesture recognition like the VMware View Client for iPads.

Link: BriForum 2011 London VMware Lab Video