The product is based on Virtual Bridges’ VERDE, and enables both Windows and Linux desktops to be hosted and managed centrally. It can be used while offline; when the Internet connection is restored, the desktop state will be synced.

While virtual desktop technology like this can obviously be useful for mobility, helping remote workers who need to access their desktops while they’re away from the office, it can also be handy for a number of other uses. For example, virtual desktops can help to:

• Manage migration between software versions
• Lower the support cost of managing PC  desktops
• Reduce lag when accessing remote applications (It can be much faster to access a virtual desktop of a machine that’s co-located with the app server than to connect through a VPN.)
• Help developers who need to maintain different environments (multiple desktop OSes or versions of IE, for example)

Virtual desktops can be useful in healthcare settings, for example,  in helping doctors and nurses to access their own desktops while they’re out on the wards, while CMI, an IBM channel partner, says it is getting interest in the product from casinos, who find the additional security the technology offers appealing.

IBM Virtual Desktop for Smart Business is available now and costs $150 per user per year as a pre-integrated, ready-to-run software package with a one-year contract. It will be sold through IBM’s channel partners, not by IBM itself.

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The Spaces function is one of the nicer features that I discovered in OS X when I started using a Mac as my main machine a couple of years ago. Spaces allows me to open programs in multiple virtual desktops, then move between them using mouse movements or hotkeys.

Space 1 (the default workspace) is where I do most of my work. My browsers (Firefox and Safari) live here, along with Dreamweaver, Photoshop, iCal, Address Book, and Mail (which I still use, despite my earlier comments, as it’s the best way to manage multiple email accounts and move messages between them). Adium lives here, too, taking up a few pixels of space on the left of my wide-screen monitor, as my colleagues and I use instant messaging to communicate frequently between our home offices.

Space 2 is dedicated to a Remote Desktop Connection to my Windows XP computer. There is still some software that’s Windows-only, so I keep an old XP machine around. If preferred, you can set up a virtual Windows machine in this space through Parallels or other virtual-machine software.

Space 3 is where I put the communications that I look at when I have some extra time: RSS news feeds, Twitter and Facebook. For RSS feeds, I use Prism, which turns Google Reader into its own desktop application. For Twitter, I’m currently using Nambu, but am testing a bunch of other software, as Twitter apps seem to be progressing very rapidly. I’m not sure why RSS feeds aren’t more widely used. Dawn has written several great posts on how they can help improve efficiency. Updates from Facebook and LinkedIn can be collected via RSS. Even Twitter updates can be turned into RSS feeds with Gtweet.

Space 4 is used for fun stuff, notably Songbird, so that I can control what I’m listening to while working.

You can control the layout, mouse shortcuts and hotkeys for Spaces from “System Preferences > Expose and Spaces”. You can also make certain programs always start in a particular space. Finally, you can move between these spaces using Control+(arrow keys), a combination that I actually had to look up as I was writing this, as my fingers have it so memorized!

By keeping different kinds of programs in different Spaces, I can focus my time more effectively, but easily switch to other tasks on the fly.

There are similar programs for other systems. Windows and Linux users, which do you prefer? How do you organize your desktop(s)?

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