Softricity Acquisition Paves Way to OS Virtualization

Microsoft is acquiring Softricity, a software vendor whose flagship product, SoftGrid, offers centralized deployment and management of traditional “thick” desktop applications—such as Microsoft Word—more easily and reliably than Microsoft can offer today. With SoftGrid, existing applications run as though they were installed conventionally, but they actually run in a virtualized Windows environment that isolates them from other applications and from the Windows OS. While Microsoft has not disclosed future plans for the Softricity technology, the technology could eventually provide a mechanism for Microsoft to offer desktop applications as subscription services in the future.

Softricity is privately held and is based in Boston, MA. No terms of the sale were released.

Superior Way to Deploy and Run Client Applications

Before SoftGrid (which began shipping in 2001), organizations had two ways to let their users run traditional “thick” desktop applications, such as Word: they could install them on users’ PCs (and try to manage them with tools such as Microsoft’s Systems Management Server (SMS) to centrally install, update, and track applications), or they could install the applications on servers running Microsoft’s Terminal Services or Citrix Presentation Server (formerly called Metaframe) and give users remote video, mouse, and keyboard access to the applications with either the Windows Remote Desktop Client or the Citrix Presentation Server Client software.