Conccurrent User Licensing for VMware Horizon Suite

VMware has made some changes to the Horizon Suite licensing since my last post about VMware’s Horizon Suite licensing and promotions.  The changes are included in the VMware End-User Computing Licensing, Pricing and Packaging Whitepaper, but are not well called out.  Here’s what you need to know about the licensing changes.

Horizon Suite (a combination of Horizon View for virtual desktops, Horizon Mirage for physical desktop management, and Horizon Workspace for application and data presentation and management) is now available in a Concurrent User scheme.  Previously, the Suite was only available in a Named User scheme.  Some Horizon View customers were accustomed to the concurrent user licensing for View virtual desktops and were uncomfortable with changing to named user licensing when upgrading to the whole Horizon Suite, despite the two named users of Horizon Suite for every one concurrent user of Horizon View upgrade promotion.

With the addition of a concurrent user license option, customers with environments where users share a single workstation can effectively license just the endpoint, not the user.  For example, in many of our health care customers, nurses on different shifts will use the same View Desktop or set of Horizon Workspace presented applications.  Doctors and admins/scheduling staff may also access the same machine.  Concurrent User licensing is appropriate for this situation.

Named User licensing is appropriate for business users who use multiple devices concurrently to access Horizon View Desktops, Horizon Data or Horizon Workspace applications, and have an endpoint managed by Horizon Mirage.

List price for Concurrent User licensing for the whole Horizon Suite is $500 per concurrent user.  List price for Named User licensing for the Horizon Suite is $300.  If you already have Horizon View and want to upgrade to the entire Horizon Suite and keep your concurrent licensing, the upgrade is $250/concurrent user.

With the new flexible licensing options, you can deliver a range of desktop and application services to your users no matter how many devices they may carry, and maintain concurrent user licensing for shared computing environments when you need it.