Kaviza, the pioneer in affordable desktop virtualization, today announced that Citrix Systems has made a strategic investment in the company. The investment will propel Kaviza’s continued development of its award-winning VDI-in-a-box offering and fuel its growing global sales and marketing momentum. To learn more, visit Kaviza and visit Kaviza at Citrix Synergy 2010.

“Interest in virtual desktops is beginning to reach beyond large enterprises. Small and medium enterprises (SME) are starting to see the benefits of providing employees with access to virtual desktops from anywhere. We are impressed with how simply Kaviza enables customers to deploy desktop virtualization with minimal investment, making it an ideal choice for SME customers and the service providers who target this market,” explains Andy Cohen, Citrix Systems’ Senior Director, Strategic Development.

Kaviza VDI-in-a-box is designed specifically to fit departmental budgets and desktop IT expertise, and is a simple and affordable solution for SMEs and managed service providers.

VDI-in-a-box scales on a grid of inexpensive commodity hardware without requiring shared storage — enabling desktop IT to deploy VDI, or hosted virtual desktops, for a total cost/desktop of less than $500. This innovative approach makes VDI less expensive than personal computers and generates immediate return on investment (ROI).

Rachel Chalmers, Research Director at The 451 Group, says, “Citrix’s investment in Kaviza demonstrates the heterogeneity of the desktop virtualization market and reinforces the need for a VDI product that customers can quickly deploy with minimal capital expense. This provides great validation for Kaviza’s business model and approach.”

“We are pleased with the rapid, double-digit growth with customers and partners worldwide. Citrix’s investment will help us to continue pushing the envelope in providing affordable and simple desktop-virtualization solutions for our customers. This investment further validates our desktop-specific approach, and we are excited to work with Citrix,” says Kaviza CEO, Kumar K. Goswami.

In related news, Parker SSD, a division of Parker Hannifin, and the College of Engineering at the University of Wisconsin-Madison are the latest to reap immediate ROI deploying Kaviza VDI-in-a-box. Additionally, Kaviza has received the 2010 Product Innovation award from Network Products guide and has been recommended by eWeek editors as a “Product to Watch.”

To learn more about Kaviza and how customers are realizing immediate benefits, attend a complimentary webinar or download a free trial at Kaviza.

About Kaviza
Kaviza VDI-in-a-box — the industry’s first and only affordable turnkey virtual desktop solution designed specifically for desktop budgets, desktop IT, and desktop user needs — employs patent-pending grid architecture to lower costs and eliminate the need for expensive infrastructure. Kaviza was founded by virtualization and VDI veterans from HP and IBM to create the next generation VDI that is simple and affordable. Kaviza is headquartered in Sunnyvale, CA and is funded in part by a grant from the National Science Foundation. For more information, contact: Kaviza.

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