10/31/2011 -- Cisco announced the VXC 6215 and VXC 4000, a pair of new VDI-oriented deliverables designed to accelerate virtualized audio and video.

Cisco positions its new VXC 6215 thin client as a complete desktop replacement solution. It supports point-to-point connections between devices in a virtual desktop infrastructure. With an optional firmware upgrade, the VXC 6215 also supports voice- and video-processing for rich media.

Voice and video can be problematic in a virtual context, typically because of latency issues that tend to result in a sub-optimal end-user experience. Thanks to the VXC's point-to-point topology and built-in video- and voice-processing capabilities, users can interact or collaborate with improved clarity, Cisco claims.

Poor audio or video performance in a virtual environment is a deal-breaker for many enterprise customers, claims Citrix's Peterson.

"There has also been an explosion of rich media in business communications -- from written to verbal to video -- and so naturally organizations of all types and sizes are also trying to ensure their virtual desktops can deliver a high definition experience to their users," he writes.

The new VXC 4000 is a software package that can "repurpose" a desktop PC into a media-ready virtual desktop client. In this case, the VXC 4000 can exploit a PC's processing resources to accelerate rich media, Cisco says.
-- By Stephen Swoyer