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Citrix announced Wednesday that it has acquired RingCube to expand its virtual desktop product line and add flexibility to Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI). By adding VDesk's technologies to its current XenDesktop offerings, Citrix plans to simplify the transition from physical desktops to virtual desktops.

Citrix announced today an add-on to its GoToMeeting service called HDFaces, a video conferencing feature that is included at no cost to those using the remote screen-sharing online meeting service. There is nothing to setup or configure, you simply click on an icon to start up your Web camera on your laptop and you bring up the video conference displays, which appear in a separate window alongside with your PowerPoint slides or other screen-oriented display. As one participant starts talking, his or her video screen is highlighted to make it easier to keep track.

Add LogMeIn to the growing number of mobile access control products out there (Rover, MobilEcho, and Accellion, just to name a few of the ones we have covered recently.) The new service, which will be entering beta shortly, will pair access to particular apps and files initially on iOS devices to better manage these devices for enterprise use.

Eventually, LogMeIn plans on offering desktop and Android support as well.

Today at the GigaOM Structure event in San Francisco Citrix Data Center and Virtualization CTO Simon Crosby announced that he and Xen founder Ian Pratt are stepping down and starting a new company called Bromium. The company also announced that it closed a series A to the tune of $9.2 million from Andreessen Horowitz, Ignition Partners and Lightspeed Venture Partners.

We caught up with Crosby by phone today to ask a few questions about the Bromium's plans.

This week at Citrix's Synergy event the company announced a version of its remote troubleshooting tool GoToManage for the iPad. The company also announced XenServer monitoring for GoToManage and high definition video for GoToMeeting.

GoToManage gives IT staff the ability to remotely administer user desktops for troubleshooting purposes. According to the announcement, the iPad app "will have the ability to connect to and control unattended computers, conduct in-session chat sessions, and track and report on their support activities."

Android has seen astounding growth in both the consumer and enterprise markets, but the iPhone and BlackBerry have dominated enterprise-specific app development. That may be starting to change. Today Box.net released its cloud storage app for Android, and other enterprise-focused apps have been released recently as well. Given the enterprise interest in the iPad and the fact that several Android tablets are supposedly just around the corner, we could start seeing more enterprise Android development. Here are a few apps that are available now.

VMware is moving up the stack with an ambitious plan to offer an IT services environment that connects the end points between the data center and the cloud.

It's a strategy that we see emerging with other vendors in the space. Virtual computing has passed the inflection point. Virtual machines are now beginning to outnumber physical servers. Without a doubt, the future of the data center is virtual.

The effects are numerous. The enterprise is witnessing a totally new app infrastructure. If you are a leader in enterprise IT you have to take into consideration the rapid acceptance of technologies such as Ruby on Rails and lightweight Web services that provide the capability to offer a Web-oriented architecture.

Today's smartphones are useful for messaging and some collaboration applications.

But connecting to applications on a desktop with a smartphone is impractical. It's far easier to see your desktop using a laptop with virtualization software.

Citrix Systems and Open Kernel Labs (OK Labs) are teaming up so the smartphone has its own virtualization software, allowing it to access any application on a virtual desktop.