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Virtual Bridges

Virtual Bridges Appoints CFO; Iser Cukierman Joins Executive Team

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Virtual Bridges today announced the appointment of Iser Cukierman to the company’s executive leadership team.

Cukierman will serve as chief financial officer where he will oversee all finance and accounting operations and provide strategic and operational leadership for the company.

Cukierman most recently he served as general manager and chief financial officer at Fiserv where he was responsible for developing and implementing the company’s strategic plan related to revenues, profitability and growth.

Before joining Fiserv, he served as CFO of Strategic Forecasting, a geopolitical analysis and professional services company. Cukierman has also held strategic finance and consulting roles at VirtualCFO, Softbank, Accenture and Ernst & Young.

Cukierman has a bachelor’s degree in Business Administration from the University of Texas in Austin and is a Certified Public Accountant.

Ed Hubbard Joins Virtual Bridges (From Citrix) As VP

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Virtual Bridges has announced that it has named Edward Hubbard vice president of products and alliances.

In his new role, Hubbard, who most recently served as senior director of business development at Citrix Systems, will drive the company’s long-term product and partnership strategy, working closely with clients to understand their business plans and deliver solutions that meet their needs.

Hubbard spent time with Dell, Microsoft and Intel before founding United Devices and serving as the company’s CEO. After a successful merger with Univa UD, Hubbard joined Citrix, managing the company’s virtualization business development efforts including strategic relationships with Microsoft and other ecosystem partners.

Hubbard will guide the roadmap for VERDE, the industry’s first VDI Gen2 offering. VERDE core capabilities include online, offline and branch VDI, a Gold Master provisioning model, a Distributed Connection brokering architecture, flexibility to run both Windows and Linux desktops, branch-level VDI at LAN speeds, the ability to span both on-premises and hosted deployment modes and desktop portability on a USB stick.

Virtual Bridges Launches Teacher’s Pet Program, A Free Virtual Desktop Offering

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Virtual Bridges has announced the launch of the Teacher’s Pet Program, an exclusive opportunity for K-12 school districts to receive complimentary desktop virtualization licenses.

The program is designed to support educators facing severely reduced budgets by providing technology that eases desktop management, reduces labor costs, extends PC lifecycles and reduces security risks.

The Teacher’s Pet Program is open to K-12 organizations at accredited institutions in the United States. In addition to 50 free licenses of VERDE VDI Gen2, the program offers:

– Single server deployment
– Remote install and troubleshooting
– E-mail support 9:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. CT, Monday through Friday
– Annual maintenance of only $2,000 for all 50 seats
– A 50 percent discount on additional licenses purchased within 60 days

VERDE eliminates the need to track, maintain, upgrade, repair and keep virus-free all desktop and notebook computers scattered across the district. Additionally, VERDE provides flexibility, allowing teachers and students to securely access desktops regardless of whether they are in the class room, working from home or studying in the library.

The Teacher’s Pet program is running through June 30, 2011.

Virtual Bridges Releases New VERDE Version

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Virtual Bridges, provider of desktop virtualization solutions and originator of VDI, disconnected and branch-office use, has announced the immediate availability of VERDE 4.2.

In less than three months since the release of VERDE 4, the new-version capabilities underscore the company’s commitment to meet market needs through rapid innovation, including extending the reach of VERDE to iPad and iPhone users to serve growing mobile workforce markets.

New VERDE 4.2 functionality includes:

iVERDE

Built on the open-source iDesktop client, iVERDE allows iPad and iPhone users to access VERDE Windows 7, Windows XP and Linux desktops. iVERDE is fully integrated with the VERDE distributed connection broker and user console, providing a user experience identical to any other VERDE client. iVERDE has been contributed to the open-source community under the GPL license, and is available through Apple’s AppsStore.

Active Directory integration for dynamic desktop sessions

Combines the benefits of VERDE’s unique dynamic gold master provisioning while fully leveraging the IT department’s investment in Active Directory user, group and machine policies and controls. Unlike legacy solutions that employ technologies like linked clones, now once a desktop becomes part of an Active Directory, it becomes a dynamic, yet unique and personalized desktop instance.

Enhanced security with support for two-factor authentication

Offers customers the ability to use industry-standard, two-factor authentication technologies, including RSA SecureID, Safeword and other RADIUS-based solutions to secure virtual desktop sessions.

Customizable VERDE LEAF (Live Environment Access Format):

Customers can personalize the VERDE Off-line VDI Type 1 client side hypervisor, LEAF, with specific branding and custom login scripts. This allows customers to personalize the login experience for end users using the VERDE client-side hypervisor. Virtual Bridges is the only vendor to provide an integrated VDI and Off-line VDI (client side hypervisor) experience that works from the same gold image. VERDE LEAF also features bi-directional data synchronization that users enjoy a consistent environment whether accessing from VDI or Off-Line VDI.

IBM, Virtual Bridges and Canonical Introduce New Linux-server Based Virtual Desktop

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Virtual Bridges, IBM and Canonical announced today the immediate availability of the newest version of a Linux-server based virtual desktop with the release of Virtual Bridges’ VERDE 2.0 software.

The Open Virtual Client desktop is a combination of IBM’s Smart Client desktop software, Canonical’s Ubuntu Linux servers and Linux desktop, and Virtual Bridges’ VERDE Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI )offering.

VERDE 2.0 delivers several industry firsts, including:

· Addresses both private cloud and  public cloud requirements.

· Meets both the needs of the connected user and the disconnected user.

· Simultaneously and seamlessly manages both Windows and Linux desktop sessions.

With today’s announcement, VERDE 2.0 goes beyond virtualizing the desktop to give users significant new functionality: providing them software access when the users are disconnected from the Internet. VERDE 2.0accomplishes this by integrating a lightweight, client-side hypervisor based on a new Self-Managing Auto Replicating Technology (SMART) protocol. The SMART protocol synchronizes a replicated cache running on the client-side hypervisor with the managed image on the server, the same image that is used to populate VDI sessions.

The Open Virtual Client desktop offers users of private or public clouds the ability to lower costs by deploying a Microsoft-alternative in either the whole organization or for particular user segments, and this can be done smoothly over time. Because VERDE supports both Linux and Microsoft Windows guest sessions, organizations can broadly realize the benefits of VDI , whether they move to Linux desktops or not. They can also gain additional cost savings that come from moving some user segments to Linux desktops. Introducing thin clients, where appropriate, can further increase cost saving opportunities.

The IBM Open Collaboration Client Solution (OCCS) includes open standards-based email, word processing, spreadsheets, unified communication, social networking and more, providing users with exceptional productivity application alternatives. IBM’s smart work client software is based on IBM Lotus Symphony, IBM Lotus Notes and Lotus applications. IBM Lotus Symphony supports the Open Document Format (ODF) standard, the basis for global document interoperability.

VERDE provides protection aginst viruses, malware and other damage while users are disconnected. If a session is corrupted by malware, the user can restart the session and the session is launched from the write-protected replicated cache of the managed image, on the local disk. This ability eliminates costly help desk intervention and makes the environment malware-resistant.

VERDE 2.0 offers the simplest licensing in the industry with a complete offering available for one simple, paid-up, per seat price. All of the components are included in this hassle-free licensing model. VERDE 2.0 is available from partners as an Open Virtual Client bundle. The VERDE 2.0 solution is also available directly from Virtual Bridges and its partners. VERDE pricing is $50 per seat for 1000 seats or more.

IBM Releases Virtual Desktop To Rival VMware View

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IBM is working with Virtual Bridges and its VERDE (Virtual Enterprise Remote Desktop Environment) product to ship a virtual Canonical Ubuntu Linux desktop, with Lotus email, word processing, spreadsheets, unified communication, and social networking software included, to a variety of end-point devices. Virtual printing is also included. Wall Street Journal calls it a ‘Microsoft-free’ desktop.

This comes off the heels of VMware’s release of View 3.

None of the pieces of the IBM bundle, available immediately, are new, but the bundled solution makes it easier and cheaper for companies to deploy a complete VDI solution on Linux, IBM maintains. IBM’s OCCS includes Lotus Symphony, its implementation of the ODF-based OpenOffice, as well as Lotus Notes and other applications.

Virtual Bridges’ Virtual Enterprise Remote Desktop Environment runs about $49 per seat, while Canonical is about $50 per seat. IBM Lotus Symphony is free but the Notes and other applications are priced separately.