[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gERz1BQmZ8s&w=560&h=315]

One of the most popular presenters at VMworld 2012 was Greg Shields, Senior Partner with Concentrated Technologies. He had a massively packed session of what seemed like 1,000 people, plus fans clamoring to meet him afterwards. I luckily had a chance to chat with him about his thoughts of AppBlast, what Shields describes as a technology that may fill a hole in VMware’s portfolio. AppBlast is a presentation virtualization solution that hopes to deliver any application, regardless of operating system or HTML functionality, over any HTML5 browser. The desktop is simply just another delivery mechanism, said Shields. While VMware is commonly known for application, desktop, and server virtualization, there’s also a mid-tier called presentation virtualization. Some refer to it as terminal services or remote desktop services (RDS). VMware hasn’t had presentation virtualization, so AppBlast may be able to provide that. As for how good AppBlast is or if he could suggest any best practices, Shields couldn’t comment as it’s a very early release. When asked about the competition, Shields stayed politically correct and politely noted that there are a lot of other vendors at VMworld offering presentation solutions.