Parallels announces today a major agreement to offer a VDI solution powered by Quest/Provision Networks Virtual Access Suite (VAS).

The deal involves Virtuozzo Containers, the Parallels OS virtualization solution, and not the upcoming hardware virtualization platform Parallels Server.
Considering the strong presence on Virtuozzo in the hosting industry it's easy to imagine how Parallels is working to offer a rentable VDI mode like the one that Desktone is trying to market.

The use of OS virtualization as back-end infrastructure implies a minor overhead and a higher consolidation ratio: Parallels and Quest report something like 130/140 virtual desktops per host rather than 30/60 in VDI scenarios with hardware virtualization platforms.

The solution is priced $140 per concurrent desktop connection and it's available now through sales channel of both companies.

On its side Provision Networks, even after the Quest acquisition, continues to close remarkable deals.
Before Parallels, the company signed a similar agreement with Virtual Iron in April 2007 and with HP in June 2007.

Parallels has a chance to raise much attention with this agreement, considering the overall lower price of the solution and the possibly higher performance.
Additionally, Parallels will almost certainly extend this agreement to Parallels Server when it will be out.