Some virtualization.info readers may remember that VMware and Samsung partnered sometime last year to deliver new PC monitors with out-of-the-box support for the VMware/Teradici PCoIP remoting protocol.
Now maybe Microsoft is working to do the same, and even more, with LG Electronics.
Reuters in fact reports about a new partnership between the two around cloud computing:
Under the pact, LG will introduce monitors integrated with Microsoft software. The monitors will function as virtual computers, allowing multiple users to run programs off a single standard PC, LG said…
The alliance will primarily target the market for virtualization solutions for educational institutions, aiming to become a leader in the segment with a 25 percent share in 2012…
LG and Microsoft will also team up to introduce monitors for cloud computing, a technology that allows users to access data and software over the Internet…
While there are no additional details, it’s safe to assume that LG will start producing PC monitors that work as Remote Desktop Services (RDS) thin clients and support the RemoteFX protocol enhancements that will ship with Windows Server 2008 R2 Service Pack 1.
This may turn LG monitors in so-called zero clients and significantly reduce the complexity to setup VDI environments. Over time, the back-end infrastructure may become more than just a Hyper-V virtual data center in the same LAN: it may become Windows Azure, the Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS) public cloud computing facility that Microsoft promised to turn into an Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS) cloud too.
Update: Just a few hours after this post, Microsoft confirmed that the alliance is all about RemoteFX for VDI, adding a few important details:
…Yesterday, LG and Microsoft announced an agreement to collaborate on the development and marketing of the LG Network Monitor, a multi-user computing solution that will integrate with RemoteFX. Under the agreement, LG will introduce a new line of network monitors with RemoteFX in mid-2011.
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Multiple LG Network Monitor users can remotely access a complete Windows 7 desktop experience, hosted on the same computer enabled by Remote Desktop Services, running somewhere on the network.
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The prospect of seeing LCD displays in the market next year that will be enabled for RemoteFX decoding means that customers will have even more form factors to choose from when determining the right access device for a VDI or session virtualization environment: rich clients, thin clients, ultra-lightweight clients, and now also network monitors…
What Microsoft doesn’t mention is the cloud computing part. For Network Monitor to work on a DaaS scenario, RemoteFX should be optimized for WAN, which is not today. Maybe this is why Microsoft and LG plans a release in mid-2011.