In October 2007 Citrix closed a major agreement with HP to resell XenServer Enterprise Edition on ProLiant and BladeSystem servers.
In March 2008 the two companies took a step further, launching a special version of Citrix hypervisor called XenServer HP Select Edition which comes pre-installed in selected servers and offers a free management console called ProLiant Virtual Console (PVC).
In May 2008, when Citrix launched its new end-to-end VDI solution XenDesktop, HP was there once again confirming support for the product on ProLiant and Compaq thin clients.
The love story continues today with HP announcing that its Blade PC systems will be sold with the just released Citrix XenDesktop 3.
At the moment there are no details about the configurations, pricing or availability. It’s likely that HP will unveil the product at the upcoming Synergy 2009.
It’s interesting to note how many different VDI games HP is trying to play at the same time.
Besides partnering with Citrix, the company is about to use the technology provided by Desktone (which is funded by Citrix) to become a hosted VDI provider.
At the same time it’s refreshing its current VDI offering by updating its own remote desktop protocol RGS and OEM’ing the Provision Networks Desktop Optimization Pack.