VMware and Teradici announced their technology agreement in September 2008.
The two co-developed a software version of the Teradici PC over IP (PCoIP) remoting protocol for over one year, and officially included it in View 4.0.
VMware has other OEM partnerships. With ThinPrint, since a long time, for example. The last one is with Likewise. But none of them can be considered instrumental to the success of a core product like View.
And, apparently, the VMware-Teradici version of PCoIP competes pretty well against Citrix HDX. It should be competitive also against the upcoming Microsoft RemoteFX.
The point is that, as far as we can understand, the agreement with Teradici is not exclusive. The company may close a similar deal with other vendors, but most of all, it may receive an unsolicited acquisition proposal.
In the unlikely event that Teradici would be acquired by someone else, what would happen to PCoIP?
Depending on current license agreement terms, it may or may not disappear from the VMware website in a day, and disappear from View at the first product upgrade, pretty much like it happened with Symantec when VMware acquired RTO Software.
What would happen to customers? Simply, they would have to go back to RDP, the other remoting protocol supported by View. But it’s not so simple.
While there’s no service disruption, the usability of the VDI environment would be impacted.
More than that, the presence (meaning the architecture and the performance) of PCoIP has a significant weight which influences, and will influence, many deals. Without PCoIP, some customers may have considered alternatives, and designed their VDI architectures in a completely different way.
Of course the scenario above is completely unlikely. Nobody really expects that VMware will let Teradici go, but then, why the company has not been acquired?
Maybe at the beginning of this partnership, VMware was not 100% confident in the capability to deliver a satisfying software-only version of PCoIP, but now?
Is it possible that VMware prefers to get involved in a bid war to keep control of PCoIP in case of an unsolicited proposal for Teradici rather than just buying its partner at a fair price today? Or there are other reasons that impede the acquisition and the current technology partnership is the only way to circumvent them?