Virtual Bridges and Gulf Business Machines Partner to Deliver VDI Gen2 to Organizations Throughout the Middle East

AUSTIN, Texas --(Business Wire)--

Virtual Bridges, Inc. and Gulf Business Machines (GBM) today announced a partnership to deliver Virtual Bridges VERDE™ virtual desktop management and provisioning capabilities to organizations throughout the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC). Featuring online, offline and branch VDI, VERDE is proven to help organizations reduce the cost and complexity of managing desktops, while minimizing security concerns and business risk.

Founded in 1990, Gulf Business Machines (GBM), a spin-off from IBM (News - Alert), is the leading IT solutions provider in the region fulfilling the IT requirements of local, regional and international organizations. This major partnership agreement establishes a long-term strategic relationship by which GBM will remarket, distribute, resell and support Virtual Bridges products, including VERDE, the industry's first VDI Gen2 solution.

Designed for organizations that want to escape the constraints of physical computing, VERDE simplifies desktop management, improves security and increases business agility. It provides end users access to Windows and Linux desktops from any location or device - including tablets, netbooks, laptops and thin clients. In addition, IT professionals can manage desktops centrally, reducing the costs and challenges associated with provisioning, updating and securing highly distributed PC environments.

"As the leading VDI Gen2 solution, VERDE will help our customers reduce desktop TCO while increasing organizational agility, productivity and responsiveness," said Cesare Cardone, CEO of Gulf Business Machines. "We are excited to partner with Virtual Bridges to bring this value to organizations in the GCC region."

Named a "Major Player" in desktop virtualization by IDC (News - Alert), Virtual Bridges helps customers easily scale their environment to meet fluctuating business demands without sacrificing security or performance, regardless of wether the solution is deployed on a customer's own infrastructure or hosted or delivered as a service. Among its many advantages, VDI Gen2 eases Windows 7 migrations. Instead of having to re-image all desktops and laptops, VERDE will allow GBM customers to create, test and deploy a virtual desktop with Windows 7 in minutes.

"Demand for VDI Gen2 continues to grow as organizations seek ways to drive greater efficiencies and transform their desktop environment to take advantage of cloud computing and mobile computing opportunities," said Jim Curtin, president and CEO of Virtual Bridges. "GBM has an incredible foothold in the market and we're thrilled to work with them to expand our reach and drive measurable ROI for their customers."

Key benefits of Virtual Bridges VERDE include:

Simple Protocol for Independent Computing Environments (SPICE) provides a seamless user experience for bandwidth-intensive applications, such as multimedia and VoIP, offering a user experience comparable to that of a physical desktop.
Zero-admin Cloud Branch delivers LAN-like VDI performance for branch users with bi-directional sync to provide disaster recovery and business continuity while ensuring consistent, high quality experiences that improve productivity.
Enhanced Microsoft (News - Alert)® Active Directory integration using IBM Tivoli Directory Integrator (TDI) provides synchronization of user information between a Microsoft Active Directory server and Virtual Desktop for Smart Business.
Enhanced management console for role- and task-based provisioning, and enhanced monitoring and reporting capabilities help the IT administrator manage virtual desktop infrastructures more effectively.
Single sign on for Windows guests enhances user productivity.
Full USB 2.0 peripheral support for integrated offline and online VDI through single user console allows end users in various industries to use a variety of peripheral devices such as those used in retail stores, banks and hospitals.
Multiple server clustering based scale out specification and support allows organizations to offer virtual desktops to more end users.
Network Attached Storage (NAS) specification and support for external storage provides a lower cost storage alternative.

About Virtual Bridges

Virtual Bridges VERDE is an award-winning desktop management and provisioning solution that leverages virtualization to deliver desktops either on-premises or in the cloud. VERDE helps enterprises transform TCO by simplifying desktop management, improving security and compliance, and increasing the organizational agility across Windows and Linux environments. Virtual Bridges is headquartered in Austin, Texas. For more information visit: http://vbridges.com.

About GBM

Founded in 1990, Gulf Business Machines (GBM) is the leading IT solutions provider in the region fulfilling the IT requirements of local, regional and international organizations in the GCC. A spin-off from IBM, GBM is the sole distributor for IBM - excluding selected IBM products and services - throughout the GCC, except for Saudi Arabia. GBM's momentum was further enhanced in 1999, when the team secured the Cisco (News - Alert) portfolio. Today GBM holds the highest level of recognition in the region from Cisco, Gold Partner status, in addition to the Cisco Borderless Network Architecture Specialized Learning Partner status. GBM offers an extensive range of IT infrastructure, IT solutions and services ranging from consulting, resource deployment and integration to after-sales support, through 1000 professional and over 20 solid strategic partnerships forged with internationally-recognized IT solution providers.

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