The string of new desktop-related products Citrix Systems is announcing at its user show in Las Vegas this week may elate some customers. But its rhetoric about continuing to compete with VMware in server virtualization and cloud computing could confuse others, and even overshadow the real, mostly free client software that should be the focus of attention, analysts say.

Citrix, the leading player in desktop and application virtualization, will announce three major new applications this week at its Synergy conference.

The first is Dazzle, an iTunes-like front end for the desktop client of Citrix’ Xenapp application virtualization server.

Dazzle is designed to be as attractive and easy to use as iTunes or any other Web-based consumer application, according to Wes Wasson, chief marketing officer of Citrix Systems, who briefed the press and analysts by phone Monday.

Read the full article at source here

The more applications you can virtualize on your Citrix XenApp servers the better.  Why?  Well the obvious reasons are avoiding application conflicts and in some cases almost eliminating regression testing which also reduces risk.  

I know from experience that pushing the button to rollout a full installation of an application can be a butt clenching operation, especially if you have 50+ applications already installed on your Xenapp build… Gulp.

Below is an article from Citrix which provides details and best practices on virtualizing and streaming Microsoft Office 2007.  If you are using the Enterprise version of XenApp then really there is no excuse to not to virtualize at least one version of it!

If you can manage virtualize and stream all your applications this way then you can start utilising your XenApp servers like appliances.