HP To Acquire Teradici: ‘Huge Asset’ In Remote Computing Push

The PC maker plans to offer Teradici’s software for enabling high-performance remote computing—including with solutions such as Windows 365—as demand for hybrid work solutions grows.

HP Inc. on Tuesday announced an agreement to acquire high-performance remote computing software firm Teradici, as the PC giant seeks to become a bigger player in the market for virtual computing technologies amid the hybrid work boom.

Teradici’s software helps to enable strong performance and security for remote computing—when combined, for instance, with a virtual desktop solution such as Microsoft’s Azure Virtual Desktop or forthcoming Windows 365 offering.

[Related: Microsoft’s Windows 365 ‘Cloud PC’ Service: 6 Things To Know]

The acquisition of Teradici—which is expected to close during the fourth quarter—will be a “huge asset to our bigger strategy” around offering a selection of software and services to complement the PC business, said Alex Cho, president of the personal systems business at HP, in an interview with CRN.

“We’re living in a hybrid world where people want to work in distributed locations—and they increasingly want to do it with higher-fidelity, visual, interactive experiences. And they need to do it securely,” Cho said.

Teradici’s software can enable high-performance remote computing from any device, including macOS, iPad and Android devices, HP said in a news release. The company is “really the leader in high-end computing that’s remote and platform-agnostic,” Cho said.

While the PC is more “essential” than ever, Teradici will serve as “a complement to the companies using cloud, virtualized workstations, remote workstations,” he said. “This gives us a wonderful asset that puts us right in the center of that [market].”

Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed, and HP said it’s not disclosing Teradici’s employee headcount.

In a statement to CRN, HP said Teradici will maintain its own brand while becoming an offering within the HP portfolio. Teradici CEO David Smith will hold the title of global head and general manager of Teradici after the acquisition closes.

Teradici’s PC-over-IP (or “PCoIP”) technology is a remote display protocol that was designed to enable enhanced remote usage of interactive applications, providing a high level of responsiveness, accurate color and a “distortion-free experience” overall, the company said on its website. The company’s flagship product is its Teradici CAS (Cloud Access Software) offering, which provides high-quality remote computing even for graphics-intensive workloads, Teradici said on the site.

In terms of security, Teradici says that its technology only transmits image pixels to endpoints, ensuring that corporate data remains in the cloud or data center.

Teradici’s partnerships include the three largest public cloud platforms—Amazon Web Services, Microsoft Azure and Google Cloud—as well as desktop virtualization technology providers such as VMware, IGEL and Nutanix. The company announced support for Apple macOS devices in January.

HP’s announcement of the planned Teradici acquisition comes two weeks after Microsoft unveiled Windows 365, its cloud-based, browser-accessible Windows desktop service. Microsoft has described Windows 365—which goes into general availability on Aug. 2—as a “cloud PC” that can be accessed from any device, including Apple devices.

Teradici “ties in well” to Windows 365, and the timing of the acquisition is ideal as Windows 365 will soon make remote computing “better understood and more mainstream,” said Mike Nash, chief technologist and a vice president in the personal systems business at HP.

The Teradici technology also works with on-premise VDI solutions, cloud-based VDI and remote access to physical devices, Nash said in an interview with CRN.

“In every case, what it’s giving you is better fidelity,” he said. “With Teradici, you can’t tell that workloads aren’t local.”

As one example of the performance capabilities of Teradici, the company received an Engineering Emmy Award in October—for “Outstanding Achievement in Engineering Development”—in recognition of the use of Teradici’s technology by remote workers in the television industry.

Teradici will build on HP’s ZCentral Remote Boost offering, which provides remote access to physical workstations, the company said in a news release.

HP does not have immediate plans to launch its own VDI solution following the acquisition, executives said.

“Right now we’re focused on integrating the company and learning about their business, and we will let the technology and the customer guide us going forward,” Nash said, in response to a question about the possibility of an HP VDI offering in the future.

Burnaby, B.C.-based Teradici was founded in 2004. An executive told CRN in 2019 that the company was entirely focused on selling its technology through channel partners.

In terms of opportunity for partners, Cho said that Teradici is “another solution that we’re going to be able to scale with our channel base.”

“We’re going to use our scale to make this available to our partners worldwide, and we’re going to add more value to it,” he said.

With Teradici, “we’re enabling people to be productive and secure in the way that they’re going to work in the future. And our partners are going to be key in enabling that,” Cho said.

The planned acquisition of Teradici looks to be a “strong move for HP” on a number of fronts, said Juan Fernandez, vice president of managed IT services at ImageNet Consulting, a major HP partner based in Oklahoma City.

“I think they’re aiming their sights on the right future -- and that is focusing on hybrid work and enabling the remote workforce,” Fernandez told CRN. “This whole modern workforce initiative is really a smart idea on HP’s part.”

The acquisition should provide a range of opportunities for partners, including the potential to create new solutions and managed services capabilities around the Teradici technology, he said.

“It’s in perfect alignment with what we’re doing. We’re talking with customers about business outcomes and enabling the remote workforce and the modern office. These are the types of solutions customers are looking to us for,” Fernandez said. “They’re looking for answers to this problem, not patched-together solutions.”

With Teradici joining its portfolio, “HP has a solution to this problem,” he said.

Teradici’s capabilities are focused on providing “cloud PCs” as well as virtual workstations, HP said in its news release. Azure specialist Nerdio recently announced it will offer support for Teradici’s PCoIP technology in deployments of Windows 365 and Azure Virtual Desktop that are managed using the Nerdio Manager for Enterprise tool.

Ultimately, Teradici has a “ton of upside” for Palo Alto, Calif.-based HP and its partners, Cho said—with an expansion of the company’s total addressable market, relevance and growth opportunities.

Beyond just offering physical PCs, HP will be “enabling people to compute” in a broader sense with Teradici, he said.

The acquisition is another indicator of the “strategy we’ve been talking about, of really shifting to become more of a software, services, computing and experiences company,” Cho said.