Yesterday, Citrix announced the new Citrix Ready Open Desktop Virtualization program. Today, I would like to provide you with more details. The program is designed to ensure that organizations deploying virtual desktops have confidence that their deployments will deliver a true, high definition (HDX), multi-device experience for the end users as well as satisfy the security and management requirements of the IT organization

As you probably saw from our XenDesktop 4 announcement, Citrix's view of desktop virtualization is much broader than running a user's desktop in a hosted virtual machine (VDI) and is emerging in mainstream deployment with customers such as Emory Healthcare and Collier County Schools.  Citrix's FlexCast delivery technology enables the delivery of every major desktop virtualization model via XenDesktop. As IT organizations pilot and architect their the desktop virtualization solutions it quickly becomes evident that desktop virtualization requires a robust ecosystem of partners to ensure that, amongst other things, the deployment is fully supported in the desktop value chain, end user's USB devices that are attached to their desktops continue to work, user personalization of their desktops remains persistent and that their desktop are available via multiple modes of access.

At the center of the program is the open architecture of XenDesktop 4. XenDesktop 4 is the only desktop virtualization solution on the market with an open architecture that is designed, certified and tested to work with the wide variety of products customers already have in production, including all popular applications, servers, storage and backup systems, client devices (BTW, check out our new HDX Ready designation that ensures a truly awesome user experience), printers and desktop peripherals, security and desktop management software and systems management products. The Citrix Ready Open Desktop Virtualization Program incorporates over 200 Citrix Ready partners and covers more than 10,000 devices. The products are verified using the full reach of the Citrix Ready program... Citrix product engineering organizations; Citrix Ready partner engineering organizations; our community of technology partners, customer and resellers; as well some via third party venders who verify a range of products (for example, USB devices).

The program covers product categories from the data center to the desktop; from choice of virtualization infrastructure to choice of end user device as shown below. For more detailed information check out the Citrix Ready Open Desktop Virtualization program at http://www.citrix.com/ODV.