Mitel and VMWare Offer Virtualised Unified Communicator Advanced
Today at VMworld 2011 Europe Mitel will demonstrate a significant technical advancement designed to considerably increase the already growing deployment of desktop virtualization for IT departments. Specifically, Mitel has integrated its virtualized Unified Communicator (UC) Advanced client software with VMware View 5, enabling Mitel and VMware to deliver soft phone and mobile device integration with a desktop virtualization environment.
This collaboration significantly extends the power of desktop virtualization, enabling a user's voice solution and UC applications to be deployed together as a single unified solution in a virtual desktop environment. By doing so, IT departments can reduce costs while extending their desktop and mobile environment to anywhere a user has an Internet connection.
VMware View and Mitel UC Advanced
This integration represents a significant technical achievement, as previously users could not stream virtualized Mitel voice applications to a virtual desktop without significant impact to performance and latency. In addition to accessing the desktop with VMware View, users are now able to access their collaboration tools, including voice, video presence, secure instant messaging, audio and web conferencing, document sharing, voice messaging and email, from their VMware View client.
Desktop virtualization using VMware View offers IT tremendous benefits by moving desktops and applications into the cloud and delivering them as a managed service. IT administration can be more automated and efficient, security is improved and the total cost of desktop ownership can be reduced by as much as 50 percent. End users can get a rich, consistent and high-performance desktop experience from any qualified device – including mobile devices like tablets and smartphones – whether in the office or on the go.
VMware and Mitel are combining the capabilities of VMware View with Mitel's UC Advanced client software, giving users of a virtualized desktop access to both their desktop applications and their communications apps. This essentially makes both their desktop computer and communications device (mobile, soft phone or desk phone) available to them no matter where they may be.
"Psychiatric Centre & Forensic Psychiatric Centre De Kijvelanden have been using Mitel's virtual MCD and Unified Communicator Advanced for some time, so we've already recognized the benefits of a virtualized Mitel Freedom architecture," said Jan Wouter van den Doel, ICT manager of Delta Psychiatric Centre & Forensic Psychiatric Centre De Kijvelanden. "Taking the obvious next step of virtualizing both the PC and the desk phone and unifying their functionality seems a natural and intuitive one to Delta. Our organisation demands mobility and secure desktop access from multiple branches. As a result we are escalating our strategy to migrate our IT infrastructure to one that is optimized for virtualization allowing us to deploy this strategy as and when required."
