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AppSense’s User Virtualization Platform Selected For HP’s Client Virtualization Reference Architecture

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AppSense, provider of user virtualization solutions, today announced that its User Virtualization Platform is now a core building block of HP’s new Client Virtualization Reference Architecture.

Along with Microsoft, VMware and Citrix, AppSense User Virtualization has been recognized by HP as a crucial technology for a successful architecture that meets the goals for client virtualization.

With the HP Client Virtualization Reference Architecture, customers can achieve the goals of IT and workforce agility without compromising performance, operating costs, information security and user experience, which is AppSense’s area of focus.

AppSense User Virtualization is a software solution that enables user management across both physical and virtual desktops.

AppSense Now A Microsoft Managed Partner

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AppSense, provider of user virtualization technology, has been elevated to a Managed Independent Software Vendor (ISV) Partner status by Microsoft. The company was previously a High Potential Partner since 2009.

As a Managed ISV Partner, AppSense will work closely with Microsoft to ensure its user virtualization platform enhances and extends the enterprise user management capabilities of Microsoft System Center, Windows Server and Windows Client.

Less than five percent of Microsoft ISV partners achieve Managed ISV Partner status, a category reserved for high-growth companies with significant joint revenue potential.

AppSense recently received a $70 million investment from Goldman Sachs for market expansion and new product development. Currently staffed with 300 employees, the company anticipates adding 150 new staff in 2011.

AppSense Names Harry Labana As VP And Chief Technology Officer

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AppSense, provider of user virtualization technology, recently announced it has appointed Harry Labana as vice president and chief technology officer. Labana brings more than 16 years experience in a wide-range of technology roles including infrastructure, software development, architecture and project management.

Labana joins AppSense from partner Citrix, where he was vice president and chief technology officer for the Citrix Desktop Division.

AppSense and Citrix have a decade-long partnership, which has taken their joint virtualization solutions into some of the largest desktop environments in the world.

AppSense currently counts more than 4,000 customers and 350 reseller partners worldwide.

“I am very excited to join AppSense at a critical period in its development, as the market opportunity and potential for user virtualization is growing exponentially,” said Labana. “It has been an honor to work with the team at Citrix, and I view my new role at AppSense as an opportunity to further strengthen and extend the partnership between the two companies”.

During his time at Citrix, Labana was part of the leadership team responsible for driving the company’s overall technology and product strategy. In his role, he evangelized the strategic vision of the company’s desktop virtualization solutions to both internal and external audiences.

Prior to joining the company, Labana led global engineering and architecture for desktop and application virtualization at Goldman Sachs.

He holds a bachelor’s degree in electronic systems engineering with honors from the University of Manchester.

AppSense Raises Its First Round Of Funding: $70 Million From Goldman Sachs

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User virtualization specialist AppSense has raised $70 million from Goldman Sachs (via TechCrunch).

User virtualization solves many of the complex technical issues around delivering a consistent environment in any environment (e.g. working from home, buying your own computer) and across any device including smartphones, iPads and other tablets.

From an enterprise perspective, it also allows IT to reduce the cost of maintenance and major upgrades, such as Windows 7 migration, reduce the time it takes users to log on and speed up the delivery of applications regardless of whether they are locally stored or cloud-based.

The software also enables them to retain control from a security perspective, without restricting the user by imposing a “lockdown” policy.

AppSense says it is already profitable and growing rapidly. Last year its turnover was $47 million, a 60% increase on the previous year.

In 2010, AppSense signed up more than 4,000 enterprise and government customers around the world, including major companies like BT, ESPN, JPMorgan Chase and United Airlines.

Last year, AppSense says it sold some 1.5 million user licenses, comprising a partnership with Fujitsu to provide desktop management solutions to the Department for Work and Pensions for more than 1,000 locations and over 140,000 users in the UK.

AppSense Recruits Virtualization Guru Dr. Benny Tritsch

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AppSense, provider of user virtualization solutions for enterprises, has hired Dr Benny Tritsch as technology director in Germany, Austria & Switzerland. Tritsch will also be a contributor to the AppSense Office of the CTO, based in San Jose, and also educate the market on user virtualization the company says.

Tritsch will also continue his independent community work, running training sessions and speaking at regular industry events on desktop, application delivery and user virtualization technologies.

Dr Tritsch is based near Frankfurt am Main, Germany, and holds a PhD in Computer Science from the Technical University in Darmstadt, a MSc in Physics from the University in Freiburg after completing his thesis at the European Organization for Nuclear Research CERN in Geneva, Switzerland and a BSc in Physics from the University in Freiburg.

Tritsch comments:

“Consumerisation of services and devices, componentized desktops, user driven service delivery models, including cloud and outsourcing, and massive desktop migration are driving the need for user virtualisation. The desktop of the future will look very different from today, comprising standardized components, user installed applications and user data, made available across all platforms, delivery mechanisms and devices.

That is the AppSense vision, and I’m genuinely excited about the company’s potential as they continue to drive this expanding user virtualization market.”

AppSense recently announced 1.5 million license sales for 2010, a 60 percent increase in revenues and 43 per cent increase in headcount. This expansion has also seen investment into new EMEA locations, with the opening of new offices in Paris and Oslo.

The company also developed existing and new partnerships with Citrix, McAfee, Microsoft and VMware, and worked with a number of system integrators such as Dell, HP, IBM and CSC.

AppSense Releases Environment Manager 8.0 For Personalizing Virtual And Physical Microsoft Platforms

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AppSense, provider of user environment management solutions for large-scale environments, today announced that its newly released Environment Manager 8.0 leverages Microsoft server technologies, providing a scalable and efficient way to personalize both virtual and physical desktops across the enterprise.

The only enterprise solution that enables standardized virtual desktop environments to be fully – and automatically – personalized, AppSense Environment Manager 8.0 accelerates virtual desktop adoption by rapidly configuring desktops and applications with a user’s personal and policy settings without administrator intervention.

By decoupling both policy and personalization data from the desktop, managing them independently and applying them on-demand, AppSense’s user environment management solution lets IT use a combination of desktop and application delivery methods—such as desktop virtualization, presentation virtualization, streamed applications and local and provisioned desktops—and easily and transparently migrate large groups of users from physical to virtual desktops.