Microsoft Acquires FSLogix to Enhance Virtual Desktop Capabilities in Office 365
November 19, 2018
Microsoft announced today that is has acquired FSLogix, a company that launched back in 2012 with a focus on reducing the amount of hardware, time and labor required to support virtual desktop platforms. FSLogix products solve real world problems in a straightforward, easy to deploy way. From small businesses to very large global enterprises across numerous industries, their solutions enhance customer experience and productivity, while reducing support requirements for IT departments.
FSLogix co-founder and CTO Randy Cook said the company’s first two products, FSLogix Apps and FSLogix Profile Container, "focused on addressing critical needs that have existed from the dawn of desktop virtualization" while their most recent product, Office 365 Container, "is designed to enhance the Microsoft Office 365 experience in those virtual desktop environments."
FSLogix Apps, one of its flagship solutions, provides a unique approach to managing applications that allows you to create a single master disk image while hiding applications from end users that are not entitled to them. It can also be used to enforce device-based licensing. FSLogix Profile Containers are getting rid of folder redirection, and optimizing login and application start times, and virtually eliminating profile corruption and login storms.
The company’s Office 365 Container has attracted a lot of attention in the last year because of its support for Outlook OST files, Windows Search, and OneDrive for Business, while also being profile agnostic and allowing concurrent access to that data. Microsoft recently commissioned an independent study on the effectiveness of FSLogix Office 365 Container for Outlook Search and OneDrive for business in non-persistent environments, and found both worked well, in addition to noting a "significant improvement in user experience" when using it to enable Outlook Search.
When talking about the acquisition, the Redmond giant said the deal will "extend [its] virtualization capabilities and provide an even richer experience" for customers of its subscription productivity services.
"With this acquisition, customers will benefit in a number of ways," Microsoft said today. "Through customer engagement, we know that Microsoft Office applications are some of the most highly used and most commonly virtualized applications in any business. Office 365 ProPlus is currently the best Office experience, and, with FSLogix enabling faster load times for user profiles in Outlook and OneDrive, Office 365 ProPlus will become even more performant in multi-user virtual environments (including Windows Virtual Desktop)."
To-date, FSLogix has raised a total of $12.5 million in funding prior to the acquisition, with a $7.5 million Series C round concluding only 8 months ago on March 7, 2018, led by Atlanta based Noro-Moseley Partners and Washington, DC based TDF Ventures. The company’s solution suite is compatible with a host of cloud vendors, including Amazon, Citrix, Red Hat, and VMware, and they have implementations ranging from less than 1,000 to those with more than 50,000 users.
Microsoft didn’t disclose any financial or operational details about the acquisition. However, Cook said things are still business as usual, and that "FSLogix will soon integrate with Microsoft and join the strength of its enterprise productivity solutions and global reach."
##
About the Author
David Marshall is an industry recognized virtualization and cloud computing expert, a ten time recipient of the VMware vExpert distinction, and has been heavily involved in the industry for the past 20 years. To help solve industry challenges, he co-founded and helped start several successful virtualization software companies such as ProTier, Surgient, Hyper9 and Vertiscale. He also spent a few years transforming desktop virtualization while at Virtual Bridges.
David is also a co-author of two very popular server virtualization books: "Advanced Server Virtualization: VMware and Microsoft Platforms in the Virtual Data Center" and "VMware ESX Essentials in the Virtual Data Center" and the Technical Editor on Wiley’s "Virtualization for Dummies" and "VMware VI3 for Dummies" books. David also authored countless articles for a number of well known technical magazines, including: InfoWorld, Virtual-Strategy and TechTarget. In 2004, he founded the oldest independent virtualization and cloud computing news site, VMblog.com, which he still operates today.
Follow David Marshall
Twitter: @vmblog
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/davidmarshall
Blog: http://vmblog.com