The lights always shine bright in Vegas, but forget the neon—the brightest signal from Omnissa ONE 2025 was Horizon VDI running on Platform9. Shining like a beacon for users looking to rehome their Horizon VDI solution, Omnissa’s big reveal at this year’s event was a shift from being a VMware-only VDI platform to supporting multiple hypervisors and multiple clouds.
This move isn’t just smart, it’s survival. Customers want flexibility, not another lock-in dressed up as “strategy.” By opening up to private cloud vendors like Platform9, Omnissa is signaling that the future of End User Computing (EUC) isn’t tied to one vendor’s licensing whims. It’s about letting enterprises modernize on their own terms.
And when Omnissa’s Chief Product Officer Bharath Rangarajan mentioned Platform9 during his keynote, the applause was a clear indication that we’re onto something.
Horizon Meets Private Cloud Director
The reason for the applause? Omnissa Horizon Cloud now works with Platform9 Private Cloud Director. If you want to run Horizon VDI workloads on something other than VMware, you can get enterprise features like VM High Availability, live migration, and Dynamic Resource Rebalancing (DRR) — all without buying proprietary hardware or re-platforming your stack. Private Cloud Director allows you to keep using Horizon, and the other 3rd party integrations you love, on your virtualization platform. No need to retool, retrain, and disrupt working business processes.
Don’t Just Take My Word for It
The best endorsement is architectural alignment. Omnissa laid out the control-plane choice enterprises want, and Omnissa’s own Product Line Manager, David Gilon, nailed it in his keynote:
“Just like Horizon Cloud Service has a control plane that is hosted in the cloud, with the data-plane for VDI workloads that can reside on-premises; wouldn’t it be nice if you could also get that architecture for your hypervisor platform? In fact, Platform9 does just that; they are a full-stack IaaS platform, with a control plane that can be hosted in the cloud or on-premises, to manage your virtualized environments that run in your infrastructure.”
I couldn’t have said it better myself. Private Cloud Director meets you where you are, supporting your current operations while reducing your TCO and giving you the ability to extend your virtualization offering with options like multi-tenancy, self-service, and managed Kubernetes, all included. There is no tiering and no premium SKU.
It’s Not Just the Destination; the Journey Matters
One of the biggest buzz points was our vJailbreak solution. VMware customers are all too familiar with the pain of trying to migrate from an entrenched solution: IP address headaches, storage challenges, timing and disruptions, endless stakeholder meetings. It’s the IT version of death by a thousand cuts. And don’t even mention the cost, which according to Gartner is estimated to start at $300 per VM and rise from there.
At Omnissa ONE, customers lit up when they saw how vJailbreak simplifies VMware migration, even for VDI environments. It’s fast and clean, with no “year-long project plans” required. Just a straight shot from “stuck” to success, reducing resource demand by as much as 50% and time by as much as 70%.
The Energy on the Ground
The thing about events like this is you can only truly get the pulse when you’re in the room. But let me tell you, the energy was high. Sessions were all very well-received, and every conversation circled back to the same theme: choice is back on the menu.
For years, IT teams have felt trapped by “infrastructure shoulds” — you should stay on this licensing bundle, you should re-platform before you get features, you should buy our hardware if you want support. Omnissa ONE was different. The message at this year’s event struck a new chord: maybe you shouldn’t. Maybe you do have options.
That’s exactly where Platform9 fits in. We give you the freedom to modernize virtualization and private cloud without reinvesting in hardware or adopting new integrations to fit the new virtualization stack. Simply put, we make it easy to adopt a new private cloud.
Why This Matters Beyond Vegas
Our partnership with Omnissa isn’t just about a shiny demo or a few slides in a pitch deck. It’s about two organizations tackling modernization from opposite ends of the spectrum and meeting in the middle:
- Omnissa: redefining the end-user computing and digital workspace experience.
- Platform9: modernizing the infrastructure that underpins it, without the lock-in tax.
When combined, enterprises get the best of both worlds: great EUC experiences backed by infrastructure that’s flexible, open, and future-proof.
Looking Ahead
Omnissa ONE reminded us of something simple but easy to forget in enterprise IT: customers actually like choice. They like flexibility.
The Horizon Cloud integration with Platform9 is entering preview soon, with Horizon Enterprise + Platform9 targeted for release early next year. And vJailbreak? It’s already making VMware migrations easy.
We’re proud to be partnering with Omnissa to make that a reality. Vegas might be known for high-stakes bets, but this one feels like a sure thing.
