Citrix today announced the latest update to its desktop virtualisation product, Citrix XenDesktop 5.5.
The main feature added to the new version is Personal vDisk, allowing users to personalise their virtual desktop whilst still taking advantage of the shared infrastructure on the back-end.
Citrix picked up the technology when it acquired RingCube earlier this month and is now making it free in all editions of XenDesktop 5.5. Whilst all the desktops are run from a single copy of Windows, Personal vDisk lets users keep their personal applications, a certain amount of data and settings preferences on their own portal.
XenDesktop 5.5 also claims the “most significant enhancement in company history” has been made to its high definition offering, Citrix HDX, with over 150 new features, making it run three times faster over both LAN and WAN.
Printing is also said to function six times faster, whilst applications should launch twice as quickly with the improved version of XenApp (6.5).
Citrix was keen to point out the compatibility of XenDesktop 5.5, claiming it could deliver applications and desktops to more than one billion devices, from PCs and Macs to iOS and Google Android.
When it comes to mobile devices, it is said to have improved functionality with support for gestures and multi-touch features on tablets or smartphones, as well as including Citrix XenClient 2 as standard for managing laptops from hypervisors.
The standard XenDesktop 5.5 is available to download today from $95 per device, with Enterprise and Platinum editions rising to $225 and $350 respectively.
