Thinstall Hints at Future Plans

For months now I’ve been arguing that the days of the traditional, locally-installed Windows application are numbered. Its replacement: A combination of ubiquitous connectivity and streaming, application-level virtualization – two irresistible forces that, I believe, will put the final nails in the fat client application coffin.

Microsoft gets the message, which is why they acquired SoftGrid: To enable them to deliver the next version of Office via secure, web-based subscription. It’s also why Symantec gobbled-up Altiris. In fact, practically all of the major virtualization players have been overtly positioning themselves to be the enablers of the coming distributed, subscription-based compute model – all, that is, except one.

The folks at Thinstall have been notably quiet about their long-term plans. For example, I know on good authority that they intend to compete directly with Microsoft in the web-based application delivery arena. However, they have yet to publicly acknowledge their overall strategy. Still, if you do a little digging you come across hints at their intentions – for example, their recent decision to post a Thinstall virtualized copy of OpenOffice 2.0 on their web site.

I, for one, was happy to have the opportunity to play with OpenOffice outside of a Virtual PC or VMware session, and to be able to do so without the messiness of a local install. But I also can help wondering if this isn’t the precursor to a far more ambitious effort – one that might even include a VMware-like library of virtualized “appliance-like” applications – in the future.

Regardless, it was nice experiencing OpenOffice locally thanks to Thinstall.