SAN JOSE, CA -- (Marketwired) -- Mar 25, 2014 -- GTC -- Unlocking the full potential of desktop virtualization for enterprises, NVIDIA and VMware today announced that NVIDIA GRID™ technology is available on the VMware Horizon™ DaaS® Platform to deliver 3D graphics on virtualized desktops and applications delivered through the cloud.

The combination offers the industry's only multi-tenant desktop-as-a-service (DaaS) platform for service providers to deliver graphics-rich desktops and applications to customers requiring visual computing, such as engineering firms, automakers, movie studios and retail designers.

DaaS can improve productivity by enabling mobile access and remote collaboration for project teams or contractors in multiple locations by delivering graphics-intensive 3D applications to users anywhere, at any time, on any connected device served. Multi-tenancy is a software architecture that enables a single instance of a software application to serve multiple customers -- increasing agility and lowering costs.

"NVIDIA GRID technology has opened the door to virtualized visual computing for enterprises worldwide," said Jeff Brown, vice president and general manager of Professional Visualization and Design at NVIDIA. "Working with VMware, we're offering customers flexible access to GPU computing power via onsite virtualized environments or in the cloud. It will help enterprises improve employee productivity, while efficiently managing their hardware resources."

Unmatched Performance Across Users and Clouds
Built on the NVIDIA® Kepler™ architecture, NVIDIA GRID GPUs offer industry-leading graphics performance combined with low-latency display technology to optimize performance on virtual desktops. Combined with the VMware Horizon DaaS Platform, users get no-compromise visual computing as a cloud service, enabling seamless mobile access and on-demand collaboration for highly demanding visual graphics applications, such as Adobe Photoshop and Autodesk Design and Creation Suites.

"Our customers expect incredibly high visual fidelity whether they're designing groundbreaking new products, buildings and civil infrastructure or blockbuster entertainment," said Ben Cochran, senior software architect at Autodesk. "DaaS complements a range of Autodesk software applications that already run on NVIDIA GRID today."

"VMware Horizon DaaS Platform with NVIDIA GRID is a great solution for companies with high-powered computing and visual graphics needs," said Sumit Dhawan, vice president and general manager of End-User Computing at VMware. "It enables businesses to drive innovation via instant mobile access and collaboration across users worldwide by delivering exceptional 3D quality graphics applications from the cloud. With VMware and NVIDIA working together, customers and service providers benefit from working with two industry leaders in their respective fields."

The VMware Horizon DaaS Platform enables service providers to deliver complete virtual workspaces, including desktops and 3D graphics applications, to end-users as a monthly cloud subscription service with predictable, easy-to-budget expenses.

Strong Market Benefits
"The benefits of DaaS are extremely compelling and attractive to customers across all industries, and we see tremendous potential in being the first to have a unique DaaS offer that accommodates the needs of customers with high-performance graphics needs," said Sumeet Sabharwal, group vice president and general manager at NaviSite. "We anticipate VMware Horizon DaaS Platform with NVIDIA GRID will be well positioned to capitalize on this opportunity. NaviSite plans to extend its DaaS offering to include NVIDIA GRID technology later this year."

Coming Soon: NVIDIA GRID Virtual GPU on Virtual Machines
NVIDIA CEO Jen-Hsun Huang and VMware CTO Ben Fathi announced the NVIDIA GRID technology on the VMware Horizon DaaS Platform during Huang's keynote address at the company's annual GPU Technology Conference.

NVIDIA and VMware also revealed a joint development effort to enable VMware customers to use NVIDIA GRID vGPU™ (virtual GPU) technology for GPU sharing with VMware virtual machines. Provisioning up to eight users per GPU, GRID vGPU promises to be the industry's most advanced technology for sharing GPU acceleration between multiple virtual desktops -- without compromising the graphics experience.

GRID vGPU is designed to deliver graphics commands directly to the GPU, allowing the GPU hardware to assign the right amount of memory to meet the requirements of each user. This combined development effort aims to deliver customers and service providers the highest performance for complex, graphics-intensive applications at the lowest possible cost.

Availability and Pricing
NVIDIA GRID technology with VMware Horizon DaaS Platform is available immediately to service providers and customers. An early access version of NVIDIA GRID vGPU hardware working with VMware virtual machines will be available to select customers later this year.

Huang's keynote is available on the GTC website at www.gputechconf.com.

To Keep Current on NVIDIA GRID:

• Follow NVIDIA GRID on LinkedIn.
• Use #GTC14 on Twitter.
• View NVIDIA GRID videos on YouTube.
• Keep up with the NVIDIA Blog, including a post by Justin Boitano, general manager of cloud and virtualization at NVIDIA.
• Join our NVIDIA GRID Forums.
• Like NVIDIA on Facebook.
• Use the Pulse news reader to subscribe to the NVIDIA Daily News feed.
• Follow VMware on Twitter and Facebook

About VMware
VMware (NYSE: VMW) is the leader in virtualization and cloud infrastructure solutions that enable businesses to thrive in the Cloud Era. Customers rely on VMware to help them transform the way they build, deliver and consume Information Technology resources in a manner that is evolutionary and based on their specific needs. With 2013 revenues of $5.21 billion, VMware has more than 500,000 customers and 75,000 partners. The company is headquartered in Silicon Valley with offices throughout the world and can be found online at www.vmware.com.

About NVIDIA
Since 1993, NVIDIA (NASDAQ: NVDA) has pioneered the art and science of visual computing. The company's technologies are transforming a world of displays into a world of interactive discovery -- for everyone from gamers to scientists, and consumers to enterprise customers. More information at http://nvidianews.nvidia.com and http://blogs.nvidia.com.

Certain statements in this press release including, but not limited to, statements as to: the impact and benefits of NVIDIA GRID technology with the VMware Horizon DaaS Platform; and the impact, benefits and availability of NVIDIA GRID vGPU are forward-looking statements that are subject to risks and uncertainties that could cause results to be materially different than expectations. Important factors that could cause actual results to differ materially include: global economic conditions; our reliance on third parties to manufacture, assemble, package and test our products; the impact of technological development and competition; development of new products and technologies or enhancements to our existing product and technologies; market acceptance of our products or our partners' products; design, manufacturing or software defects; changes in consumer preferences or demands; changes in industry standards and interfaces; unexpected loss of performance of our products or technologies when integrated into systems; as well as other factors detailed from time to time in the reports NVIDIA files with the Securities and Exchange Commission, or SEC, including its Form 10-K for the fiscal period ended January 26, 2014. Copies of reports filed with the SEC are posted on the company's website and are available from NVIDIA without charge. These forward-looking statements are not guarantees of future performance and speak only as of the date hereof, and, except as required by law, NVIDIA disclaims any obligation to update these forward-looking statements to reflect future events or circumstances.

This press release contains forward-looking statements including, among other things, statements regarding the expected availability and features of GRID vGPU for sharing with VMware virtual machines, its potential benefits and the potential benefits of GRID on VMware Horizon DaaS to customers and partners and the significance of visual virtual computing to customers. These forward-looking statements are subject to the safe harbor provisions created by the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Actual results could differ materially from those projected in the forward-looking statements as a result of certain risk factors, including but not limited to (i) changes to priorities and levels of government spending; (ii) adverse changes in general economic or market conditions; (iii) delays or reductions in information technology spending; (iv) competitive factors, including but not limited to pricing pressures, industry consolidation, entry of new competitors into the virtualization, end user and cloud computing markets, and new product and marketing initiatives by our competitors; (v) our customers' ability to develop, and to transition to, new products and computing strategies such as cloud computing and DaaS; (vi) the uncertainty of customer acceptance of emerging technology; (vii) rapid technological and market changes in virtualization software and platforms for cloud and desktop computing; (viii) changes to product development timelines; (ix) VMware's ability to protect its proprietary technology; and (xi) VMware's ability to attract and retain highly qualified employees. These forward looking statements are based on current expectations and are subject to uncertainties and changes in condition, significance, value and effect as well as other risks detailed in documents filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission, including our most recent reports on Form 10-K and Form 10-Q and current reports on Form 8-K that we may file from time to time, which could cause actual results to vary from expectations. VMware assumes no obligation to, and does not currently intend to, update any such forward-looking statements after the date of this release.