At the Citrix Synergy event in Anaheim, Dell has announced four additions to its cloud client-computing portfolio, three of which are updates or extensions of previous solutions, and one of which is a new all-in-one thin client line, the Dell Wyse 5000 series. The refreshes are: the Dell Wyse Xenith 3 zero client for Citrix, which replaces the Xenith 2; a new version of its end-to-end VDI offering, Dell Wyse Datacenter for Citrix XenDesktop; and the Dell Wyse quad display 7000 series thin client, a new quad-core entry in Dell’s high end family.
The most attention is being directed at the Dell Wyse Xenith 3 zero client for Citrix – because the announcement is being made at the Citrix event.
“The difference between the Xenith 3 and the Xenith 2 is mainly price-performance changes,” said Dan O’Farrell, Senior Director of Product Marketing of Dell Wyse. “They look the same, with almost the same form factor. The Xenith 3 is a little thicker because it has a dual core SoC [System on a Chip] processor, while the old one was single core. The dual core gives a nice performance boost and can drive two single displays, while the old one required a splitter cable to get two displays.” The Xenith 3 also features dual-band WiFi, while the old one was single band, and so had less capacity across the network.
“We think the Xenith 3 will enable companies to extend VDI to customers they couldn’t before, where they couldn’t get what they wanted or would have had to get the more expensive Pro 2,” O’Farrell said. “The market is really divided into three groups, task workers, knowledge users, who make broader use of their systems than task workers, and power users. The Xenith 2 has been for task workers and some knowledge users. Now the Xenith 3 covers the full range of knowledge workers as well – everything but the third group, the power users.
“There is a modest price increase for the Xenith 3, at $USD 329, up from $299, when you consider the performance boost,” O’Farrell said. It will be available in mid-May.
The Dell Wyse 5000 series all-in-one is an entirely new line.
“The all-in-one thin client is a first of its kind for Dell, but it is also an industry first, because it has a dual core AMD-based thin OS thin client, which makes it the first of its kind that is virus immune,” O’Farrell said. “It looks like a monitor, and the use case is customer-facing type users, anywhere where you have workers serving others who can see the back of the system. It looks prettier than strapping a thin client to the top of a monitor, and is more secure because everything is all-in-one. It expands choices for companies who want this type of product.” It is also available with a keyboard and mouse.
The Dell Wyse 5000 series all-in-one thin client starts at $USD 599 and will be available mid-June.
Dell is also announcing a new quad-display thin client entry in its high-end Dell Wyse 7000 series, formerly the Z series. With a high performance quad-core processor, it delivers high-performance HD multimedia capability across up to four displays.
“This one is more of a pricing and utility play, with the use cases being securities traders, stock analysts, and CAD designers,” O’Farrell said.
The Dell Wyse 7000 series quad-display thin client starts at $729 USD and will be available in mid-May.
The final new offering is a new version of Dell Wyse Datacenter for Citrix XenDesktop 7.5, a comprehensive reference architecture with configuration support for a range of applications.
“This reference architecture contains everything you need to have a virtual environment in your environment based on Citrix, with the whole thing assembled by Dell,” O’Farrell said. “We think this is more pertinent to the lower end of the market, small to midsize companies, because of the handholding. It can work in the higher end, depending on the company. Some can easily handle this complexity, while others will want to pilot it, and the latter is how this would normally play in a bigger company.”
While Dell has offered this solution for Citrix before, this new update makes management simpler, with unified management across XenApp and XenDesktop with Citrix Flexcast. It also adds an option for Dell Foglight, which increases manageability through monitoring of performance, health and user experience for Citrix XenDesktop and Dell infrastructure.
Wyse sold extensively through distribution before its acquisition by Dell, and O’Farrell said the channel is still huge for them.
“We have the Wyse distribution network and Dell PartnerDirect and we will use both routes to market,” he said. “It’s all about expanding markets and extending use cases. We still don’t say most companies should use VDI for all things, but most companies can use it somewhere.”
This article originally appeared on eChannelLine.com.
