Citrix wants to deliver Windows 10 as a service

Windows 10 is set to get a suite of new business functionality, thanks to a renewed partnership between Microsoft and virtualisation firm Citrix.

Speaking at Citrix Synergy 2016 in Las Vegas, new CEO Kirill Tatarinov announced the company will enable XenDesktop VDI to deliver Windows 10 as-a-service from Microsoft's Azure Cloud.

Tatarinov said that the move is based both on the companies' existing 25-year partnership and the fact that businesses are increasingly moving or wanting to move to Windows 10.

"Today, I'm very excited that we're taking our longstanding, storied partnership with Microsoft to the next level," said Tatarinov.

"We're working together to enable XenDesktop powered VDI to help deliver Windows 10 desktop as a service from Azure cloud," he continued. "In my conversation with many customers, Windows 10 deployments are accelerating at an ever increasing pace and many of our customers tell me that they want to deploy Windows 10 on refurbished hardware in a virtualised fashion. And this partnership unleashes that opportunity and enables us to do it and get it to the next phase."

Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella also hailed the renewed collaboration between the two companies.

Appearing via video, he said: "At Microsoft, our mission is to empower every person and every organisation on the planet to achieve more and core to this mission is fostering a strong partnership with companies like Citrix."

"Citrix is helping our mutual customers accelerate the adoption of Office 365 and Windows 10, enabling them to easily collaborate from anywhere on the most secure and the most productive platform for business," he added. "I'm truly excited by the work that the two companies are doing together to bring these new innovations to market and help organisations of all sizes transform and seize the opportunities ahead."