Zero clients & PCoIP with VMWare
There is a lot of confusion about the future usability of zero clients and PCoIP, particularly in a VMWare environment. The confusion comes from an unclear understanding of which future VMWare Horizon versions will not have integrated PCoIP and a lack of understanding of the latest generation of zero clients, and their planned compatibility with VMWare Horizon, both now and future versions.
First, let’s understand that traditional zero clients using PCoIP, connecting to a host computer with a physical host card (“Remote Workstation Card”, RWC) are known to have such an extended, service-free lifespan.
The final production date for the TERA2 chips (affecting both TERA2 zero clients and host cards) is in early 2025. Following that production run, availability will be limited to stock on hand. TERA2 devices will be fully supported through 2028 (with updates), and the devices will continue to function beyond 2028, just without updates. ClearCube makes every kind of zero clients available, and we can outfit you with zero clients to meet your security and compatibility requirements.
VMWare's official statement regarding PCoIP (date):
“We will include PCoIP as a protocol option in the Horizon Client and Horizon Agent through the end of 2025. At that point in two years, we will remove the PCoIP protocol option from all new Horizon releases. Note that all Horizon releases are supported for three years from ship date. This means that the client and agent that will ship in 2025 will be supported until the end of 2028…The PCoIP protocol is owned by HP Teradici (Teradici was acquired by HP in 2021), and together we have been working on some exciting initiatives.
For more information, here is a link to the VMWare blog containing their full statement: Announcing end of support for PCoIP in VMware Horizon – VMware End-User Computing Blog
This indicates that updates to version 8.x (and prior versions) through 2025 will continue support for PCoIP. After that, PCoIP will continue to work on those versions with security updates through 2028. The next major release of VMWare Horizon, Version 9.x, is not expected to include built-in PCoIP support. Therefore, upgrades to Version 9.x would end support for the built-in version of PCoIP from VMWare.