Multimedia Terminal Services Company Acquired

Calista Technologies, which creates technology to improve the user experience on virtualized desktops such as those running inside Terminal Services, has been acquired by Microsoft. The acquisition was part of a broader virtualization announcement that also included an expanded cooperation deal with Citrix and new permission to license home editions of Vista for use in virtual machines. (For the latest on the Vista licensing changes, see “Vista Home Virtualization Permitted“.)

What Calista Offers

Microsoft’s Terminal Server is a popular technology for running desktop software remotely, but it has some significant limitations. Because the software is actually executing on a server and only sending visual updates to the client over the Remote Desktop Protocol (RDP), it provides a poor environment on which to run streaming media, such as audio and video. For example, a codec for playing a given type of media may be present on the server but not on the client.

Calista Virtual Desktop (CVD) technology allows remote PCs to access 3D graphics (including DirectX and Windows Presentation Foundation applications), audio, and video over RDP without the need for specialized hardware (such as particular graphics cards) or software (such as particular codecs or media players) on the client PC. This ensures that users get a similar experience when accessing applications via terminal services as they would get accessing applications on their local PC and eliminates costs associated with installing client-side hardware and software for this type of content. In addition, Calista claims that CVD compresses video signals traveling over RDP to reduce network bandwidth requirements.