Microsoft Corp. announced its intended acquisition of Kidaro, a provider of desktop virtualization solutions for enterprises. In combining Kidaro's virtualization technology with its suite of desktop management tools, known as the Microsoft Desktop Optimization Pack for Software Assurance, Microsoft will enable IT professionals to optimize their desktop infrastructure by providing management capabilities for Virtual PCs, streamlining deployments and easing application compatibility issues.

    According to Shanen Boettcher, general manager of Windows product management at Microsoft, "The acquisition of Kidaro is an important component of our virtualization strategy, and it delivers a powerful new tool to help enterprise customers optimize their desktops. Virtual PCs can help businesses address a number of challenges around application compatibility, mobility and business continuity. Kidaro's seamless user interface and management capabilities allow enterprises to more easily use and manage Virtual PCs. Incorporating Kidaro's innovative solutions into the Microsoft Desktop Optimization Pack further enables virtualization across the enterprise, and is another example of how we are helping customers keep up with the changing needs of their business."

    Windows Vista Enterprise, combined with technologies such as the Microsoft Desktop Optimization Pack and flexible licensing options, provides powerful tools that help you optimize your organization's desktop infrastructure while enabling increased flexibility, centralizing security, and streamlining deployment, helping to provide greater productivity to users.

    "Virtualization technology has tremendous potential to help companies reduce costs and increase control over their desktops, while simultaneously delivering benefits to end users," stated Kevin Brown, chief executive officer of Kidaro. "By adding Kidaro's technology to Microsoft Desktop Optimization Pack, Microsoft can deliver sophisticated virtual desktop capabilities and management to a wide variety of enterprise customers."

    Virtualization is on everybody's mind. And with good reason. It's a critical, sea-changing concept with wide-reaching implications. The idea that you can make pools of dynamic resources with unlimited capacity available to users anywhere at anytime is extraordinary. Because it is so vital, Microsoft is committed to driving the adoption of virtualization. However, unlike today's conventional wisdom, we don't view virtualization as an isolated, tactical tool. Rather, since virtualization can have a profound impact on your entire operations, from the data center to the desktop, we believe it should be embraced as part of an enterprise-wide infrastructure strategy.

    Managing desktops across an enterprise can be time-consuming, complex and costly. Adding Kidaro's desktop virtualization capabilities to the Microsoft Desktop Optimization Pack suite will provide Microsoft Software Assurance customers who have purchased the add-on subscription with the enhanced ability to do the following:  
    - Accelerate Windows Vista migrations by minimizing compatibility issues between applications and the operating system
    - Easily deploy managed Virtual PCs to Windows desktops
    - Drive business continuity by enabling rapid reconstitution of corporate desktops
    - Minimize the tension between IT control and user flexibility by applying policies in locked-down corporate Virtual PCs while giving users more open access to the underlying host operating system
    - Speed user adoption of desktop virtualization by making Virtual PCs "invisible" to end users
    - Reduce IT investment in desktop image management by delivering virtual images independent of hardware or local desktop configuration