
VMWare to Bring Traditional Windows Apps and Desktops to Chromebooks - DonGateley
http://googleenterprise.blogspot.com/2014/02/vmware-to-bring-traditional-windows_12.html
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georgemcbay
Title ("Windows on Chromebook at last"... will probably be changed by mods
since it doesn't match the source post) is somewhat misleading in that this is
just a remote desktop client to VMWare Horizon.

I'm sure this solution is nice for people that are already invested in the
VMWare Horizon infrastructure, but for people with Chromebooks who are already
tied to physical Windows machines just using Chrome Remote Desktop (which has
been supported on Chromebooks for quite a while) is probably the better
solution.

~~~
DonGateley
If they've got one more appropriate I welcome the change.

Yes, initially for enterprise, but once the door is open and traveled by
experts a bit to wring it out and simplify it it becomes everyone's egress.
The fact of an app store app for it (mentioned at the bottom) portends that
future.

~~~
nl
This has been around for a while, and there are plenty of other solutions:
Citrix and Ericom both have a similar product.

There is also the Google developed RDP client for Chrome[1].

Outside of enterprise (and development) it isn't a very interesting market -
the fraction of people who _need_ Windows apps, have a Windows machine _and_ a
Chromebook, and are bothered enough by having to physically access their own
Windows machine is pretty small.

The "remote assistance" market is somewhat different, but that is served by
quite a lot of applications.

[1] [https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/chrome-remote-
desk...](https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/chrome-remote-
desktop/gbchcmhmhahfdphkhkmpfmihenigjmpp?hl=en)

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jfasi
This is interesting. Where are the public-facing Windows machines? I wonder if
there's an opportunity in creating "Windows as a Service?" So many of us live
on Mac OS or Linux and only need Windows on those rare occasions when someone
sends us a .docx file or when we need to access some horrible web application
that only works with Java SE 1.6.36_2 running on IE.

~~~
georgemcbay
"Windows as a Service" is essentially exactly what this is. Despite the hype
I've seen in a few places suggesting this is some radical way to run Windows
on Chromebooks what it actually is is a Chromebook-hosted client for VMWare's
Horizon "DaaS" (desktop as a service) platform.

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skrowl
This is more like "Citrix / Remote Desktop client on Chromebook" than "Windows
on Chromebook"

~~~
yen223
That's great, because "Windows on a laptop" isn't exactly a novel idea.

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rdtsc
> Desktop as a Service (DaaS)

Someone had to be laughing when they typed that. At this point *aaS is just
overused that I don't know how anyone typing another instance of it could be
serious.

~~~
reidrac
It used to be VDI (Virtual Desktop Infrastructure), and I remember a lot of
hype around 2008; I guess the *aaS is easier to understand because it sounds
more familiar.

But you're right. I remember joking with a taxi driver about the abuse of
buzzwords and we agreed he was in the "CaaS" business (car as a service).

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d0
I'm not sure this will work wonderfully. As someone who tried to spend a big
chunk of time sitting at a MacBook and using Windows via RDP, it's a royal
PITA as the keyboard differences are pretty big and the mappings are
unintuitive. The ChromeBook keyboards are pretty much a rip off of Mac
keyboard so you're getting into interesting territory of no F-keys and odd
delete behaviour for example.

It's not going to be pleasant.

Windows can be driven very effectively and easily by keyboard only (unlike
MacOS and ChromeOS) and this advantage is lost so power users at least and a
lot of office workers accustomed to using their devices via keyboard are going
to be shot.

I've had to go back to a PC for RDP sessions to be honest as it's the only
thing that's bearable.

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frakkingcylons
So this DaaS is supposed to be accessed through an HTML5 client. I wonder if
this will nudge Amazon into developing a web client (maybe coinciding with the
end of the limited preview) as well so their similar DaaS product
(WorkSpaces)[1] can compete with VMWare for the Chromebook market. At the
moment, WorkSpaces supports Mac, Windows, iPad, Android, and Kindle Fire [2].

[1]: [http://aws.amazon.com/workspaces/](http://aws.amazon.com/workspaces/)
[2]: [http://aws.amazon.com/workspaces/details/#desktop-and-
mobile...](http://aws.amazon.com/workspaces/details/#desktop-and-mobile-
clients)

~~~
noname123
Yes, I hope Amazon come up with a good case for this as AWS is really designed
for compute and web servers. So I don't need all of the server features like
advanced NIO or support for clustered SQL servers. Just want a simple VM that
I can dial down or up RAM and processing power if I want to do more
complicated stuff.

Awesome if they can come up with MacOS VM for iOS development; or even a
optimized VM for Android development.

~~~
_delirium
> Awesome if they can come up with MacOS VM for iOS development

Unless Amazon can cut a special licensing deal with Apple, for now the only
legal way to run OSX VMs is on top of OSX itself on Apple hardware. Since
Apple discontinued the rackmount Xserve line in 2010, that would require a
datacenter full of Mac Pro towers on shelves or something, which sounds
unlikely to be appealing to Amazon.

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DonGateley
While initially aimed at enterprise the fact that there will be a fairly
simple app for this in the app store could radically change Microsoft's role
in the marketplace.

My shelved Chromebooks for Seniors project is now off the shelf. I came to
realize that they would not appeal to those who already have Windows computer
experience, by far the largest share of those with experience. That group is
rapidly becoming the majority of seniors. Having a unified hardware platform
that can be shared among the complete set of users totally changes the game.

This might be the final correction to the deviant path taken away from thin
clients with the advent of the PC.

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ForHackernews
This seems like some wonky hack where you're running a Windows VM on a remote
server and sending the GUI back to the Chromebook.

Is there any real reason you couldn't just install Windows on Chromebook
hardware? Do they lock the bootloader?

~~~
paulfurtado
While I'm guessing there are many Chromebooks which can run Windows, note that
many others have ARM CPU's.

~~~
ForHackernews
They could run Windows RT /s

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noname123
I already use this via AWS and rooted ChromeOS, Crouton and the rdesktop ARM
client. Very excited about Amazon Workspace!

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Aoyagi
"traditional" "apps"

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awestroke
I hope not

