Google today announced it has partnered with VMWare to bring Windows access to Chrome OS. More specifically, if you own a Chromebook, you can now use VMware Horizon DaaS to manage your Windows desktop, data, and applications using the company’s Blast HTML5 technology.

VMware Horizon DaaS isn’t just for Chrome OS: it is broadly meant for customers looking to manage desktop environments as a cloud service. The news today is that Chromebook owners can take advantage as well, using DaaS in the cloud or within hybrid deployments.

Google’s timing is excellent, given that many businesses are currently looking at all their options regarding the end of Windows XP support, which is less than two months away. In fact, that’s exactly what the company is pushing – instead of upgrading from XP, businesses should just switch to Chrome OS:

This means you can work with Chromebooks and connect to a Windows experience running VMware Horizon View. As the countdown to Windows XP end of life continues, deploying Chromebooks and taking advantage of a DaaS environment ensures that security vulnerabilities, application compatibility and migration budgets will be a thing of the past.

In other words, businesses will still be using Windows in some form, but their main devices would be running Chrome OS. It’s a clever strategy, especially given that many firms already run more than one type of operating system (Windows, OS X, and Linux) with or without the help of virtualization.

VMware Horizon View 5.3 works on Chromebooks now as an on-premise service. The technology will also be available “soon” as an application that can be installed from the Chrome Web Store, but unfortunately Google wouldn’t offer a specific date.

See also – Google Now arrives in latest Chrome OS build and Google offers $2.7 million in rewards at Pwnium 4 hacking contest for Chrome OS

Top Image Credit: Kimihiro Hoshino/AFP/Getty Images

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