Harmonic Spectrum Media Studio vs. Unidesk (Discontinued)

Unidesk is well suited to environments where users are accustomed to using personalized and "unique" desktops where as other solutions cater only to standard or non-persistent desktop experiences. The personalization layer present in Unidesk allows users to feel as though they are using a personalized system without the complexities of managing dozens or hundreds of unique systems for users across your company. Updates to existing desktops/layers are accomplished with ease and can easily be done by lower tier support. If your deliverable is to provide a persistent desktop experience while maintaining the best density and performance of your infrastructure then Unidesk is a hard solution to beat.

Incentivized

• Creating application layers is easy to do. It's just a matter of installing the applications as you would normally do on a computer.
• Unidesk's technology isn't sandbox like VMware's ThinApp technology so it works much better and is more compatible with other software.
• The admin console and technology in general is easy to learn for the administrator while it's transparent to the end users.

Incentivized

• Occasionally if a desktop is left on for too long some weird things happens. For example, the desktop is no longer recognized in AD - it could be AD, removal, etc., but I have checked all these. Refreshing and restoring the VM seems to solve the problem. This happened more than once.
• We have redundancy (two) connection brokers - Unidesk has trouble from time to time knowing which one to use it seems.
• The rebuild takes too long when the VM is larger. Users would reboot their desktop as a normal routine and they call to reboot thinking their VD is down when it was just taking its time to rebuild the layers (anywhere from 5 to 15 mins. Mostly 15mins).

Incentivized

Unidesk has been a solid product for us. We continue to rely on its simplicity and scalability.

Incentivized

AppVolumes seems to be a lot less mature as a product. It does have some benefits over Unidesk e.g. the fact it doesn't include the OS Layer (image management) side means I can just use it for the app layering piece if I like. I can also deploy my application layers to physical desktops BUT I have had less success compatibility wise with my applications as AppVolumes 'AppStacks'. I believe Unidesk has a better handle on the do's and don'ts, or at least may be a little more honest about them. I also don't enjoy the Console with AppVolumes and while I can use it without the image management or tied into the stack the way Unidesk is...you also lose that image management and need to couple it with another product in some scenarios. FlexApp to me is stronger than AppVolumes. FlexApp is coupled with a profile management solution called ProfileUnity which makes it a more attractive alternative (at least at the time of me posting this). However, I prefer other UEM products at this moment in time. I also value the image management and ease of a single console for all of Virt Desktop management that Unidesk provides.

Incentivized

• Image management and updating is now much quicker, time saved
• Application 'packaging' is required a lot less, which saves a lot of money
• Unidesks customer service is the best that I have worked with. PERIOD!

Incentivized