Amazon Web Services (AWS), a global cloud hosting provider, has announced AWS Marketplace for Desktop Apps – a new category on the AWS Marketplace that would make it easy to search for and buy desktop applications for Amazon WorkSpaces.
Amazon WorkSpaces’s virtual desktop customers can access the AWS Marketplace for Desktop Apps, choose from a broad selection of more than 100 applications in eleven categories, and pay by the month for the applications they use.
To simplify deployment of these desktop applications, AWS also announced Amazon WorkSpaces Application Manager (Amazon WAM), a new service that packages and delivers applications to Amazon WorkSpaces so that they that run as if they are natively installed, but are centrally controlled by IT administrators for simplified maintenance and auditability.
Amazon WorkSpaces Console
Launched in 2014, Amazon WorkSpaces is a managed desktop computing service in the cloud that gives end-users access to the documents, applications, and resources they need from the device of their choice. Until now, Amazon WorkSpaces customers did not have an easy way to search for and buy applications for their Amazon WorkSpaces. Additionally, customers have only been able to buy desktop software on an annual or perpetual license basis.
With AWS Marketplace for Desktop Apps, these customers would now be able to easily find and purchase monthly subscriptions to popular desktop applications in categories such as Security, Productivity and Collaboration, Business Intelligence, and Illustration and Design – all from within the Amazon WorkSpaces console.
“With just a few clicks in the AWS Management Console, Amazon WorkSpaces customers are able to provision a high-quality, cloud-based desktop experience for their end users at half the cost of other virtual desktop infrastructure solutions,” said Gene Farrell, General Manager of AWS Enterprise Applications. “By introducing the AWS Marketplace for Desktop Apps and Amazon WAM, AWS is adding even more value to the Amazon WorkSpaces experience by helping organizations reduce the complexity of selecting, provisioning, and deploying applications. With pay-as-you-go monthly pricing and end-user self-provisioning of applications, customers will lower the costs associated with provisioning and maintaining applications for their workforce.”
