At the VMworld 2013 in Barcelona, Pat Gelsinger’s VMware showed that it’s serious about moving beyond the hypervisor and into value-added services that utilize virtualization to help customers drive tangible business value.

The company kicked off the event with the acquisition of Desktone, a Chelmsford, MA-based provider of VDI-as-a-service that is credited with pioneering the delivery of desktop images from multitenant cloud environments. The vendor’s platform leverages a commodity architecture to undercut traditional enterprise solutions while simplifying deployment and management across a wide range of devices. This combination of cost-efficiency and flexibility attracted high-profile clients such as Dell, Fujitsu and NEC, and earned Desktone the backing of two prominent investors. The acquisition marks a turning point for the firm and for VMware, which is repositioning itself to tap the steady growth of the virtual desktop market.

Driven by the rapid adoption of flash and converged infrastructure, VDI technology is breaking into segments where it has not gained significant momentum in the past. Through VMware’s robust ecosystem of technology vendors and channel partners, Desktone will be able to accelerate this trend and increase the server virtualization giant’s competitive edge in the process.

VMware is diversifying its portfolio in response to increased pressure from Microsoft, which has made significant gains with Hyper-V and Windows Azure. Not to be outdone, the company is expanding vCloud Hybrid Service to the UK in a push to bring existing customers into the cloud era.

First announced at VMworld 2013 in September, vCloud Hybrid is a PaaS offering that lets users extend their VMware environments to the cloud without changing the way they manage their applications. Select clients will be able to participate in a private beta for the platform starting in fourth quarter 2013 until it becomes generally available early next year.