VMware has had a busy year in 2011, and their penchant for advancement will most likely be extended as we move closer to 2012. EMC’s virtualization subsidiary has been working on establishing new partners and monetizing that community, and one of its most recent gains is a deal to virtualize Richland School District Two.

The district includes 35 K-12 schools and approximately 30,000 students and faculty. It licensed Ericom AccessNow for VMware View to provide improved access to educational applications for both of these groups, with a list of supported apps including MAPS, ALEKS and the Office suite among others.

Ericon’s software is completely web-based, and is designed to deliver user virtualization to every device with an HTML5-supporting browser. This decision by the school district is a part of South California’s “1 TWO 1” initiative.

“AccessNow fits right in with our goal to provide students with a computing experience that closely matches the traditional, full desktop computing experience and is affordable, productive, supportable and highly functional,” said Tommy Carter, an engineer for Richland School District Two.

Partners and resellers account for a sizable portion of VMware’s revenue, which is the reason behind the company’s continuous expansion of this area.  Just yesterday the Bristol-based StorMagic announced that its Storage Virtual Appliance has been given the VMware Ready status.  The significance of the news is that StorMagic is now able to market the storage management solution via the VMware ecosystem and website.

Also this week, Avnet expanded its distribution agreement with VMware in Europe. The 2007 contract has been updated over time to include France, Turkey, Poland and other markets – most recently Ireland. VMware virtualization technology will be made available to Avnet partners in the region alongside marketing tools, support and other related resources.