Today, Microsoft announced their acquisition of Calista Technologies. Brian Madden alluded to this yesterday and it was confirmed today. What is Calista Technologies? Technically, they don’t have a product out on the market currently, but the software they are working on is pretty cool in the virtualization arena. Here is what the Microsoft Terminals Services team states about Calista:

“Calista’s products dramatically improve the end-user experience of 3D and multimedia delivery for Microsoft multimedia applications, virtualized desktop deployments, and server-hosted virtualized desktops or applications using Windows Terminal Services. Their technologies support all file and streaming media type available, and optimize Microsoft’s widely available Remote Desktop Protocol (RDP) to reduce the network bandwidth requirements for remote display of rich media content; thus, remote workers can receive a modern Windows desktop experience without the need for dedicated hardware. As multimedia and 3D graphics are becoming more ubiquitous in business and consumer contexts alike, customers expect the full desktop experience regardless of their desktop deployment choice. With the addition of Calista technologies, Microsoft will enable users to enjoy a rich remote experience for server-hosted, virtualized desktops and applications, thus allowing an organization full flexibility in their choice to deploy centrally managed desktops or a local traditional desktop. In fact, in one of our other announcements today we talked about the concept of Windows Vista optimized desktop solutions; the idea behind it is to enable customers to use several Microsoft technologies, such as the rich user interface of Windows Vista, server based applications like Windows Server 2008 Terminal Services or hosted desktop technology like Windows Vista Enterprise Centralized Desktops, for personal computing scenarios that best meet their unique needs. Calista will be key in helping customers to make the right trade-off decisions among these deployment options, by helping to ensure a consistent, rich end user experience in those scenarios where users transition between a local and a server-hosted desktop.”

So, what does all this mean to Citrix? Brian Madden answers this for us in this article:

“How does Citrix respond to this? I [Brian Madden] had a conference call with David Roussain and Mick Hollison (VP, Product Management for XenDesktop) at Citrix. They were tripping over each other to say that Calista did not compete with them, that this just validates the space and Citrix’s desktop delivery approach, and that they’re a strong partner with Microsoft. Their feeling is that Calista is a core technology that Microsoft will build into their platform, most likely for the purpose of remoting WPF apps. They stressed that it’s a raw technology and it won’t make its way into a product for awhile. And when it does make it into a product, it will be another core technology that Citrix can “embrace and extend.”

Sources:

Tomorrow’s news today: Microsoft buys VDI vendor Calista Technologies, expands partnership with Citrix - Brian Madden
Microsoft buys Calista Technologies. What will this mean? - Brian Madden
Microsoft Acquires Calista Technologies - Microsoft Terminal Service Team Blog
Microsoft Acquires Calista Technologies - Michel Roth

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