AWS is bolstering its ecosystem around desktops

Amazon has launched an application marketplace for AWS WorkSpaces, the company’s public cloud-based desktop-as-a-service, which it said would help users deploy virtualised desktop apps more quickly while keeping costs and permissioning under control.

Last year AWS launched WorkSpaces to appeal to mobile enterprises and the thin-client crowd, and the company said the app marketplace will allow users to quickly provision and deploy software directly onto virtual desktops – with software subscriptions charged monthly, and Amazon handling all of the billing.

To complement the marketplace the company unveiled the WorkSpaces Application Manager, which will enable IT managers to track and manage application usage, cost, and permissions.

“With just a few clicks in the AWS Management Console, Amazon WorkSpaces customers are able to provision a high-quality, cloud-based desktop experience for their end users at half the cost of other virtual desktop infrastructure solutions,” said Gene Farrell, general manager of AWS Enterprise Applications.

“By introducing the AWS Marketplace for Desktop Apps and Amazon WAM, AWS is adding even more value to the Amazon WorkSpaces experience by helping organizations reduce the complexity of selecting, provisioning, and deploying applications. With pay-as-you-go monthly pricing and end-user self-provisioning of applications, customers will lower the costs associated with provisioning and maintaining applications for their workforce,” Farrell said.

AWS has spent the better part of the last 9 years building up a fairly vibrant ecosystem of third-party services around its core set of infrastructure offerings, and it will be interesting to see whether the company can replicate that success on the desktop. Amazon says many companies, particularly the larger ones, deploy a mix of upwards of 200 software titles to their desktops, which would suggest a huge opportunity for the cloud giant and its partners.