Omnissa brings VDI-style app packaging to physical PCs

VMware spin-out is making friends and choosing some enemies

Omnissa, the independent company that acquired VMware’s former end-user compute portfolio, has tweaked its App Volumes product that packages and deploys desktop apps for use on virtual PCs so it works on physical machines too.

Orgs that adopt desktop virtualization (VDI) typically do so because they work in highly regulated industries or security-sensitive government agencies where even a well-managed desktop that restricts users from installing software isn’t considered sufficiently safe. VDI players have therefore created tools to deploy desktop apps to virtual PCs, and to manage them in line with corporate policies.

App Volumes therefore bundles apps into a form that makes it possible for just-in-time delivery of apps to virtual PCs, an important consideration because some software can take a while to install and users of virtual desktops probably won’t have time to wait for that to happen.

Virtual desktops, however, account for only around five percent of the global PC fleet. If Omnissa is to achieve the sort of growth that its private equity owners typically covet, it needs to target bigger markets.

Which is why the company has tweaked App Volumes so it can deploy packaged apps to physical PCs. The tech works by bundling all the files a desktop app requires into a virtual hard disk (VHD) that Windows mounts as if it were any other external disk – but without presenting it as a volume, as would happen if users connected a USB storage device.

Windows just sees the files it needs to run an app – helped by an App Volumes agent.

Omnissa has created tools to automate app distribution and hopes that takes it into competition with the likes of Microsoft’s software deployment tool Endpoint Configuration Manager. The VMware spin-out thinks its prospects of doing so will improve soon, once it adds full lifecycle management of desktop apps to its portfolio.

Omnissa is not alone in using app deployment tools developed for VDI on physical PCs – its direct rival Citrix is already there.

The company also competes with Citrix as a partner of Nutanix, which was not shy about the delicious irony of the former VMware business unit allowing its products to run on its own AHV hypervisor. Omnissa last week brought its wares to another hypervisor: Singaporean company Arcfra’s Virtualization Engine (AVE).

As our sibling publication Blocks and Files recently reported, Arcfra opened for business in just 2024 but managed to earn a spot in analyst firm Gartner’s Market Guide for Full-Stack HCI Software. Omnissa and Arcfra last week announced a joint VDI solution they claim will be far cheaper to operate than a similar setup on VMware’s VSAN virtual storage appliances. ®