Collingwood, Ont. – At the second annual Channel Executive Conference at the Blue Mountain Resort, Samsung Canada took an unlikely step towards cloud computing.
The company which is predominantly in printers, large format displays and flat panel monitors believes its can provide end point solutions for desktop virtualization and cloud computing.
Marco Nalli, marketing manager for Samsung Canada based in Mississauga, Ont., said that Samsung wanted to utilize its product portfolio in flat panel monitors and market position to get into the rapidly emerging market of desktop virtualization.
To this end, Samsung partnered with Burnaby, B.C.-based Teradici Corp., a developer of PC over standard IP networks. Teradici product enables the channel to offer customers a way to connect end points such as a monitor to the data centre through a desktop portal device and a host card. The host card or chipset is on a blade server in the data centre and through an Ethernet cable it can send applications and data to the desktop portal device, which looks like a fat external hard drive.
Nalli said through the Samsung/Teradici joint partnership the two companies were able to develop a solution where the chipset is embedded on the back of a Samsung 930ND flat panel display, eliminating the need for the desktop portal device.
“The purpose of this technology is to bring the cloud into realization for many users who thought it was out of reach. What we are able to do is have a direct connection to the blade server and it is a one-to-one connection with our flat-panel display,” Nalli said.
The Samsung 930ND has an RG45 connection for high speed cloud computing and USB connectors for a mouse and keyboard.
According to Nalli, IT organizations will look at this solution because it reduces tech support since all the support resides back at the data centre. “One of the key advantages of this is if the user has any issues you just have to swap in a new monitor and the user is up and running in a short amount of time,” Nalli said.
Security is another issue this combined Samsung/Teradici solution tries to solve. Users are unable to steal data because it is stored elsewhere.
This solution is also ideal for companies with many remote offices and it also eliminates the need for anti-virus and back up at the user level.
Nalli believes this solution would work well for insurance companies who use third party brokers. The solution can be distributed through a local service provider on a VPN wireless network.
Samsung is also working with VMware to further enhance its cloud offerings.
Nalli said Samsung makes end points and VMware’s expertise is in virtualization and together we will work on a way to virtualize end points.
Last fall VMware chose PCoIP from Teradici as its protocol for desktop remoting allowing companies to virtualize desktops, divide a server into multiple virtual PCs and remote the desktops to multiple users with PCoIP technology.
“Everyone is talking about the cloud and Samsung wanted to address this need in the market place and get users up and running on the cloud. With Teredici and VMware we are now able to reach a point of realization and we have product that is viable for the channel. The channel will now have an additional opportunity to go back to customers and offer them a turnkey solution. We are just an end point, but it helps us also get deeper into the IT infrastructure market and enables us to leverage many IT solution providers,” Nalli said.
Teradici’s PCoIP or PC over IP product has three main benefits: the user cannot tell that the PC is not under the desk; security and remoting; and better manageability than traditional thin client computing.
Andrew Naiberg, channel product manager for Teradici, said with a stripped down PC you still have an OS to deal with along with USB drivers. “Our product has none of that. There is no X86 processor, no drivers, no hard drive, no fan and no OS which equals to zero desktop maintenance,” he said.
The entry level cost of PCoIP in Canada is $1,000 just to remote the computer plus another $500 for the desktop portal device and host card.
By embedding the chipset into the Samsung 930ND monitor it removes the $500 costs of the portal device. “This is a slam dunk bargain since most monitors are under $500 and it has all the connectors as well as an output for a second monitor for dual monitor configurations,” Naiberg said.
Margins on PCoIP are between 15 to 20 percentage points, but Naiberg said the better opportunity for the channel is on the service opportunities for building a network and implementing security. The target markets for PCoIP were originally aimed at heavy graphics users such as design engineering, video editing, and digital content creation. But, with security gaining great interest Teradici now plays in financial services, government, defense, military, health care, media and entertainment (preventing movies and games from being pre-released on the Web), legal markets and anywhere personal records or financial data needs to be protected, Naiberg said.
The desktop portal device can also handle harsh environments such as manufacturing floors or sawmills and in applications where the machine is difficult or expensive to get to such as remote monitoring and surveillance, various information and retail kiosks, and digital signage.
Teradici just released the PCoIP Partner Program, which provides VARs, SIs and OEMs with education, information, sales materials, presentations, and discounts.
The program offers three levels of partnership with increasing levels of support and assistance to reward increased levels of commitment, sales and expertise.
Teradici’s channel partner Web site is at www.pcoip.com/partners.