Only a few days later than anticipated, VMware has released ThinApp 4.0, its first application virtualization solution (formerly called Project North Star) after snapping up Thinstall earlier this year.
ThinApp 4.0 (build 2200) is the next major release of the former Thinstall solution called Application Virtualization Suite 3.2, and has certain new features, such as:
Application Sync: enables you to deploy application updates. Application Sync automatically checks for and installs updates to your packaged applications. Updates might include changes such as a new version, service pack updates, or configuration changes in the package.ini file Application Link: connects deployed applications. For example, you can establish a relationship between a deployed instance of Microsoft Office 2003 and a new Microsoft Office plug-in. Application Link enables you to establish a link between applications without having to encapsulate them into the same executable package
A trial download is available here.
ThinApp comes bundled with VMware Workstation under the name ThinApp Suite. The company offers a starting package for 50 concurrent clients at $6,050 (including a 12×5 Gold Support yearly subscription), with additional clients starting at $47.19 (including a 12×5 Gold Support yearly subscription).
I have a dieferfnt perspective. I am an instructional developer at Microsoft MediaRoom, which is the next iteration of IPTV. I see how things here are run, and from a business-unit perspective, I have nothing but respect for a well-run operation. I read the history of MS-Dos in a book here, and have realized that it is merely a difference in operational attitudes. This company succeeded on mudularity, it has always had distinct business units, and each unit has its own preferences, attitudes, and policies. Even teams within units have dieferfnt standards and conventions. And this was accepted at Microsoft in the past. This operating paradigm is now being modified for the better, but changing the direction of a huge ship is not an overnight process. Companies like Apple and Oracle (even despite acquisitions) present a unified face because it is an important survival and image issue for them. Microsoft has other things to worry about, and if it means that developers have to learn dieferfnt conventions across an OS, or even across the same product’s dieferfnt functional roles, then so be it. It is unfortunate, but it is the fact. And the sooner we learn to live with it and accept it as “the way things are” the sooner we’ll realize that we can only change ourselves, and to lament about the change someone else would benefit by will not necessarily hasten that change.I wish you well.Abbas