Teradici Launches Remote macOS Support: 5 Things To Know

The high-performance remote computing vendor, which just announced a deal to be acquired by HP Inc., now supports remote access to Apple’s Mac devices.

Remote Computing Expansion

On Wednesday, high-performance remote computing software firm Teradici announced it has expanded its flagship product to enable users to remotely access devices in Apple’s Mac line of laptops and desktops. The Burnaby, B.C.-based company announced general availability for macOS support in its Teradici CAS (Cloud Access Software) offering, which provides high-quality remote computing even for graphics-intensive workloads. The launch of macOS support comes on the heels of the announcement that HP Inc. has reached an agreement to acquire Teradici, as the PC giant seeks to become a bigger player in virtual computing technologies amid the hybrid work boom. CRN spoke with Ziad Lammam, vice president for product management and marketing at Teradici, to find out more about the company’s latest product launch.

What follows are five key things to know about Teradici’s debut of macOS support.

Enabling Creative Professionals

Teradici is the first provider of high-performance remote desktop technology to add support for Apple’s Mac, Lammam said. Teradici CAS, which is an end-to-end virtual desktop solution, had already provided support for devices running Windows and Linux.

Teradici’s PC-over-IP (or “PCoIP”) technology is a remote display protocol that was designed to enable enhanced remote usage of interactive applications, providing a high level of responsiveness, accurate color and a distortion-free experience overall.

Creative professionals such as graphic designers, video and audio editors and other artists are among the core users of Teradici, making the addition of macOS support a big win for those users due to the popularity of the Mac in creative fields, Lammam said.

Teradici CAS has already long been accessible by Mac endpoints, he noted.

Thanks to the high-performance capabilities offered by Teradici, the remote access experience to Macs should feel the same to users “as if they were on a local machine,” the company said in a news release.

Deployment Options

Teradici CAS now supports Mac devices running macOS Catalina or macOS Big Sur, the company said.

The software can be deployed either in an on-premises or cloud environment. Teradici’s partnerships include the three largest public cloud platforms—Amazon Web Services, Microsoft Azure and Google Cloud.

Teradici also offers customers a choice of which hypervisor to use, with support for VMware, Nutanix and KVM.

Another key partnership for Teradici is with “Mac cloud” provider MacStadium, which includes a focus on serving developers. With the new support for macOS and the MacStadium, Teradici is looking to expand its solution to additional Mac users and use cases in app development, Lammam said.

Adding Apple Partners

Founded in 2004, Teradici has been channel-focused since the beginning and continues to do nearly 100 percent of its sales through partners, Lammam said. The addition of macOS support is therefore opening new avenues for working with Apple partners, he said.

“When we added the macOS solution, we expanded our channel reach by onboarding channel partners that were more oriented towards macOS,” Lammam said. “We certainly value the channel -- that is how we go to market.

In a recent interview with CRN, Alex Cho, president of the personal systems business at HP, said that Teradici is “another solution that we’re going to be able to scale with our channel base.”

“We’re going to use our scale to make this available to our partners worldwide, and we’re going to add more value to it,” he said.

With Teradici, “we’re enabling people to be productive and secure in the way that they’re going to work in the future. And our partners are going to be key in enabling that,” Cho said.

The Microsoft Effect

On Monday, Microsoft launched general availability for Windows 365, its cloud-based, browser-accessible Windows desktop service. Microsoft has described Windows 365 as a “cloud PC” that can be accessed from any device, including Apple devices.

Teradici works with Windows 365—including with Azure specialist Nerdio offering support for Teradici’s PCoIP technology in deployments of Windows 365 and Azure Virtual Desktop that are managed using the Nerdio Manager for Enterprise tool.

Microsoft’s launch of Windows 365 is giving a major boost to the visibility of virtual computing as an option for businesses, Lammam said. “It’s proving out that the move to this whole desktop-as-a-service model is real and that customers want it,” he said.

Teradici also supports other virtual desktop solutions including Microsoft’s Azure Virtual Desktop, while the company’s PCoIP protocol is incorporated “under the hood” as a part of solutions including Amazon WorkSpaces, he said.

Hybrid Work

Along with the efforts to serve more customers in the developer community, Teradici is also looking to expand its solutions more into serving knowledge workers—especially when it comes to enabling hybrid work, Lammam said.

“With the hybrid workforce shift that’s happening, enterprises are more comfortable now [with virtual computing]—they’re more ready to look at moving from that traditional PC workstation model to one that is fully remote,” he said.

That’s part of why the planned acquisition by HP—which is expected to close during the fourth quarter—makes so much sense, Lammam said.

“We’re excited about scaling Teradici CAS for this hybrid workforce market,” he said. “In terms of where we’re going together, that’s the next big area.”