VMware Horizon Suite Licensing

VMware has updated their licensing model for the Horizon Suite to include a concurrent option; the list price is $500.00 a concurrent user compared to $300.00 for the named user bundle. Personally, I love the Horizon Suite, but if I were going to deploy this for 500 users it would cost me $250,000.00 not including support. If you add in 3 years technical support, which costs $166.00 a user, we are adding another $83,160.00 in the overall licensing costs for a total of $333,160.00.

When Horizon Suite was first introduced and I saw the price, I thought it was a fantastic deal for an additional $50.00; until you look at the Named User pricing model and how it changes Horizon View to Named User licensing. With Named User, you can't specify Joe Smith that is using a thin client in a call center consumes a View license and Jane Brown in application development with a traditional endpoint gets a Mirage license. Instead, the Named User is bundled all the products whether they are using them or not. So, even though it is $100,000.00 cheaper, you could have a lot of wasted product licenses if your business partners aren't using the entire suite.


I think in the end, many customers are going to take an a la carte approach for purchasing the products. They will spend $250.00 for Concurrent User pricing for Horizon View, and then purchase Workspace and Mirage for $150.00 a Named User.

For example, if I have 100 users in a call center that will be using Horizon View, I will spend $25,000.00 on the Horizon View bundle. Then I would spend $60,000.00 on Mirage licenses for the 400 users with physical devices that I want centrally managed from my data center. The total cost, not including support, is $85,000.00.

Buying Horizon Mirage as a Named User makes sense, the business user is using a traditional endpoint device. It is their corporate desktop or laptop that was delivered when they started for the company. That same licensing model doesn't make sense for a Horizon View deployment with dynamic provisioning that might be supporting multiple shift workers.

Also, VMware has announced the End of Availability for ThinApp, View Enterprise, and Horizon Application Manager on February 20, 2013. 

• Last chance to buy View Enterprize Bundle or Add On is September 30, 2013
• Last chance to buy Thin App Client or Suite is December 15, 2013
• Last chance to buy Horizon Application Manager is March 31, 2013

I think Horizon Suite brings together a comprehensive solution for managing an end-user computing environment. It will help provide business agility, allow for IT support to concentrate on innovation instead of maintenance and upgrades, and help enable workforce productivity and mobility. The new licensing model does provide flexibility, but you need to make sure that you are using the licensing method that meets the business needs at a cost the business can afford.

You can find more information on the Horizon Family Pricing, Packaging, and Licensing Whitepaper.