Dell Partners With Liquidware Over Desktop Virtualisation

The IT services arm of Dell is to use migration and monitoring tools from Liquidware Labs in an effort to make it easier to for businesses to migrate to a desktop virtualisation environment.

Officials at Dell Services said 15 July that they will utilise Liquidware Labs’ Stratusphere and ProfileUnity products to help assess a business’s existing desktop environment, migrate user data and documents onto virtual desktops, and configure the new desktops.

More Efficient

The migration and monitoring tools from Liquidware Labs will enable Dell Services representatives to more efficiently help enterprises move tens of thousands of physical desktops into a virtualised environment, according to Dell officials.

“As we researched software and technologies that enhance virtual desktop services, we found that Liquidware Labs’ end-to-end set of solutions helps eliminate inefficiencies and simplifies the process for customers,” Mark Bilger, services product group leader for Dell Services, said in a statement. “We rigorously tested and evaluated the software and determined it provided a high level of support metrics and a comprehensive solution for planning and migrating customers’ desktops into virtual desktop environments.”

Liquidware Labs’ software also will enable Dell Services officials to accelerate the adoption capabilities and lower the costs of new desktop software such as Microsoft’s Windows 7, VMware View and Citrix Systems’ XenDesktop.

Through the software, Dell Services also will be able to ensure service levels through user experience reports and provide ongoing management capabilities.

Services Play

Dell has been aggressively building out its services business since it bought Perot Systems for $3.9 billion (£2.5 billion) last year.

Dell Services in January announced a $42 million (£27 million) military contract for network operations, desktop services and communications at Rock Island Arsenal in Illinois. The unit also is expanding into several areas, such as virtualisation for health care institutions.