Cisco Enters Desktop-as-a-Service Market Via Channel

The desktop-as-a-service (DaaS) war heated up last month when Amazon Web Services (AWS) joined the market and challenged Microsoft (MSFT) and other competitors. Now, Cisco Systems (CSCO) is joining the fray with its DaaS offering dubbed Cisco Desktop Virtualization Solution.

The Cisco DaaS offering was designed to provide cloud services providers with a Cisco-based virtual desktop subscription service with scalability, security, performance and efficiency features. For its cloud provider partners, Cisco is also touting operational efficiencies such as management tools, licensing components and the ability to drive desktops to multiple customers from one platform.

For Cisco cloud provider partners, this provides additional opportunities to provide DaaS to customers—a segment of the cloud market that appears to be growing. The 451 Group predicts the desktop virtualization ecosystem market will grow to $5.6 billion by 2016, and chances are, at least a part of that revenue will be driven through channel partners and cloud services providers.

For end customers, Cisco promises increased choice and flexibility, enabling those customers to build their own on-premises desktop virtualization solution or buying it as a service from Cisco partners.

“Many organizations are looking for ways to achieve the benefits of desktop virtualization without the need to install and maintain equipment or make capital investments,” said Satinder Sethi, vice president of Engineering for Unified Computing at Cisco, in a prepared statement.. “Not only is desktop as a service a great solution for a growing number of companies, but Cisco’s offering is uniquely architected to help cloud service providers achieve rapid time-to-market while economically scaling their business.”

Cisco is playing nice within its technology alliances ecosystem, though. The new offering includes deployment options from partners including VMware (VMW) and Citrix (CTXS).