XenDesktop 7 is designed to help businesses mobilize Windows apps while simplifying desktop delivery and access. This latest version keeps intellectual property secure and maintains data privacy for reduced cost and management.

 New HDX Mobile optimizes Windows apps for native look and feel

• HDX Mobile optimizations translate multi-touch gestures, finger swipes, and inertia into smooth navigation and scrolling commands that are relayed to the hosted Windows apps in real-time, without the need for re-writes.
• HDX Mobile also offers native menu controls that translate pull-down lists and complex mouse navigation into the native controls built in to the mobile device for smoother app navigation. This includes intelligent sensing of text-entry fields which automatically launches the local device keyboard when needed – while ensuring the underlying text box is visible.
• HDX Mobile SDK for Windows Apps gives enterprise developers the power to optimize their existing Windows apps for any mobile environment, including automated dynamic formatting of the app for horizontal or vertical display or different screen sizes.
• HDX deep compression and redirection technologies are specifically designed to deal with mobile broadband networks and consumer devices. IT can deliver full HD video over 3G networks, leveraging the power of smartphones and tablets to decode video graphics while offloading compression to the server side through shared GPU acceleration.
• A redesigned Citrix StoreFront unifies app and desktop access through a simple, consistent user experience, including seamless transitions between devices that pick up where the user left off – all while maintaining subscriptions for a continuous experience.
• Clientless Receiver allows for the rendering of apps and desktops in a browser, in the event that a native Receiver cannot be installed on a user’s device.

Built on an improved FlexCast management architecture – designed to enable cloud-style simplicity, automation and scale

• Radically simplify app and desktop delivery through full automation and unification on either hosted-shared Windows Server or Windows desktop OS-based VDI hosts.
• Multiple versions of Windows Server and desktop operating systems can run side-by-side with newly-enabled support for Windows Server 2012 and Windows 8.
• New Studio console contains easy-to-use service design workflows with automated configuration checking designed to eliminate errors and speed production deployments up to 80 percent.
• New Director console is optimized for helpdesk and real-time troubleshooting with built-in EdgeSight analytics tools for long-term capacity management, resource planning, and Service Level Assurance.
• Automated physical to virtual (P2V) app migration analysis tools, powered by Citrix AppDNA, speed migration.

Secure intellectual property and protect data privacy

• End-to-end security with new NetScaler Gateway provides granular access policies, auto-configured with a simple corporate email address.
• HDX 3DPro for hosted-shared apps and desktops provides direct hardware GPU sharing of OpenGL-based apps for ultimate performance and app compatibility – not only for designers and engineers, but for supply chain and field employees as well.
• Seamless local apps integrate local Windows apps into a hosted virtual desktop, fantastic for integrating hosted apps separately from a hosted desktop for maximum performance.
• Cloud-based voice and video collaboration with local processing optimizes apps such as GoToMeeting with HDFaces or Skype.

Posted in citrix.com

Three key themes of XenDesktop 7:

1. Mobile: One of the newer challenges with respect to delivering enterprise applications is,… how do you make these applications accessible on all the different types of devices such as tablets and smartphones – without having to rewrite the applications for each target device? So to solve this particular challenge, XenDesktop 7 introduces new capabilities to support new multi-touch gesturing, including swipe for scrolling, pinch & zoom for re-sizing the apps and file within the app. H.264 in SuperCodec helps ensure smooth, bi-directional, high def (HD) video and audio for true collaboration experience, including performance improvements, like: 2X increased in frame-rate and up to 10x reduction in bit rate when playing HD videos over a low-speed connection.
2.  Simple: Unlike previous versions of XenApp and XenDesktop, XenDesktop 7 customers no longer need to have separate infrastructure and management consoles to deliver business critical apps and desktop to their users. XenDesktop 7 expands FlexCast Management Architecture (FMA) to not only deliver virtual desktops and apps running on Windows 8, Windows 7, Vista and XP, but also server-hosted desktops and apps from Windows Server 2012, Windows Server 2008R2. And with the enhanced Citrix Director, help desk admins and escalation engineers have one support console for troubleshooting and supporting XenDesktop 7 users. It is through this simplification effort, customers stand to benefit from the reduced costs with centralized management and automation.
3. Secure – Protecting intellectual property and privacy information is one of the top business challenges for many organizations. With XenDesktop 7, businesses can confidently delivery any Windows applications, especially 3D and graphical intensive applications,  to remote users, contractors and partners. XenDesktop 7 introduces features like OpenGL acceleration, direct-shared hardware acceleration, HDX seamless local apps and integrated PC remote access, to enable successful collaboration engagement with partners/contractors, but at the same time, protecting the intellectual property and maintaining privacy protection for their organizations.

XenDesktop App edition

Mark also introduced a new App edition of XenDesktop 7, to complement the existing VDI, Enterprise and Platinum editions. The new XenDesktop App edition is designed for customers interested in delivering applications today, and yet want the flexibility to expand to the full FlexCast model at a later time. And because of the unified FlexCast architecture, customers simply upgrade from the App edition to XenDesktop Enterprise or Platinum to immediately delivery virtual desktops to their users – all without additional installation or management consoles.

And as a benefit of Subscription Advantage, XenApp customers with Enterprise and Platinum licenses are entitled to the XenDesktop App edition.

XenApp 6.5 Feature Pack 2

Recognizing many of our XenApp customers have invested on the XenApp 6.5 version, Citrix will be releasing a Feature Pack 2 at the same time as XenDesktop 7. This feature pack will bring improved user experience for application developers via an updated Mobility Pack, more scalability and cost-effective OpenGL support with GPU sharing on the XenApp 6.5 server, AppDNA to help accelerate application validation, Microsoft Lync 2013 optimization pack, support for Hyper-V 3 and Provisioning Services, along with enhancements to CDM (client drive mapping) delivering up to 4x faster download & upload speed.

Lastly, I would encourage you to have a read at a blog by my colleague, Kevin. The title is Citrix brings Windows apps and data to a mobile world, and it covers the importance of applications, applications and data on mobile devices and more .