VMware buys Thinstall and acquires services side of Foedus.Thinstall's model decouples application deployments from the operating system, delivering enterprise apps to target desktops regardless of the underlying OS. According to the (formerly) privately held company, their installed base is a million-plus seats at more than 600 customers.

Per Jeff Jennings, VMware's desktop product VP, in a prepared statement: "The addition of Thinstall to our desktop virtualization portfolio will help us to better deliver cost-effective and more flexible tools for quickly and securely provisioning desktops."

Encapsulating apps with Thinstall's solution makes rapid deployment to "locked down" desktops a relatively simple process. Enterprise admins can prep versions of the same application based on end-user type, language sets, business requirments, and/or supporting apps as required. Thinstall deployments allow developers to wrap supporting apps and frameworks into the virtualized app without needing to touch the base build; this is a boon for deploying mission-critical apps that require conflicting underlying application infrastructure. .Net 2.O versus .Net 1.0, anyone? Look for more options in desktop deployment/virtualization strategies as Thinstall tools and tech are folded into the VMware desktop product lines.

In other acquisition news, Foedus (for fellow Latin students who may have forgotten) translates as a treaty or alliance. It looks like the company name was a self-fulfilling prophecy; the service side of the Portsmouth, N.H., shop is now firmly aligned with VMware, adding its professional skill base and HW/SW partnership experience to VMware's professional services group. The Foedus sales and marketing operations moved over to GreenPages Technology as part of the deal.