Dell is looking to push adoption of desktop virtualisation in Europe by offering its Desktop as a Service (DaaS) platform to customers in the region from its UK data centre.
The data centre, located near Slough just outside London, will mean customers from the UK, France, Germany and the Netherlands can now hook up to a more local service.
The DaaS platform is hosted and managed by Dell, leaving the customers to look after just the management and provisioning of individual desktops, including operating system, applications and user profiles.
Speaking to CBR, David Angwin, marketing director, Dell Wyse EMEA, said DaaS lets customers look after what is important to them, rather than worrying about the IT side of things.
"Dell hosts and manages the virtual desktop and the infrastructure. It lets users manage the images on the individual desktop they deliver to the end-users. It’s for customers looking to have a hands-off approach," he said. "We think the industry is heading that way; organisations can focus on what they do best and leave the IT to someone else to manage. Desktop as a Service is the next big as a Service platform."
Prices for Dell’s DaaS platform start at £29 or €35 per user, per month.
The announcement, made at VMworld Europe 2012 in Barcelona, is part of a number of updates to Dell’s virtualisation technologies, which were boosted by the acquisition of Wyse back in April 2012.
Other updates include the announcement of new zero-clients, the Dell Wyse P25 and P45. The P25, which can support two HD displays, is available now and the P45, which can support up to four HD screens, is expected to be released later this month. The new zero-clients add client-side caching, which Dell claims can reduce bandwidth consumption over LAN and WAN.
More from CBR on VMworld Europe 2012:
VMware integrates DynamicOps with new vCloud Suite updates
VMware CEO outlines software-defined data centre dream
