The following comes from Mike's report on the new features. Get the entire piece here.

Web Interface 5 (Project Caxton)
The Citrix Web Interface is going to a complete makeover in Presentation Server Delaware. I know, I can hear you saying “again”? Yes again, but they time it’s a complete overhaul. Al though it’s still based on the same codebase WING it does indeed, at least, looks entirely different. I’ve seen a demo of it at Thomas Koetzing’s session at BriForum Europe 2007 and I must say it looks really cool.

Citrix has realized that the Web Interface is usually the first thing end users see and has acted accordingly in redesigning it. In this age of Vista, iPhones, Zunes, YouTube, Silverlight you cannot present end users with a interface that hasn’t really evolved over the last 4 years. Well, you could but they like a cool interface better.

It does not only look cool but also has lots of new functionality as well. Here’s a summary:
• The client detection and download wizard will be enhanced.
• High and Low graphics support: WI 5 will be offer a low graphics mode for low-end devices like PDAs so that they can use the Web Interface as well.
• Generic Radius Support
• Improved Messaging to User: Remember the message area in the current WI? Well this has been moved to a separate tab and is more versatile now.
• Support for RADIUS
• Support for Kerberos Authentication
• Overall layout improvements: For example,you can now search for applications (handy in case you have a zillion applications), applications will be shown in “explorer style” reorganizing them into folders for easy navigating, (yet) easier customization of the Web Interface layout and the possibility to insert “tips” into the Web Interface that users see on specific actions in the Web Interface.

Application Streaming Version 2.0
No it’s not going to called exactly “application streaming version 2.0” but this is basically what it is. Just like Presentation Server 4.0 introduced Application Isolation Environments (AIE) and Presentation 4.5 provided a major usability upgrade for this (AIE 2.0), Presentation Server Delaware will improve Application Streaming. The improvements are generally geared towards making streaming to desktops more enterprise ready.

HTTP Support for Streaming
Currently Citrix’ Application Streaming Feature only supports streaming from a file share. This might be OK for streaming inside the same Datacenter or LAN but becomes problematic when you are trying to stream across a WAN to another location. Delaware introduces support for streaming over HTTP.

Inter-Bubble Communications
Application Streaming in Presentation Server Delaware will introduce the possibility of allowing virtualized application to interact with one another. This is similar to something Microsoft is going to introduce in Microsoft Application Virtualization (the new name for Softgrid) 4.5 (which is slated for a May/June 2008 release). Interaction between different virtual applications specifically increases the value of Citrix Application Streaming for environments that make heavy use of middleware applications (on their Citrix servers).

Differential updates for offline applications
Presentation Server Delaware introduces the possibility to perform differential updates to offline applications. This means that when a virtual application is updated (which means that the profile on the file share will be updated) no longer will the entire application have to be downloaded to the client. Only the differences (deltas) in the virtual application will be downloaded. Supposedly this also allows a user to keep their personal settings after the upgrade. This is similar to the “Active Upgrade” feature in the current releases of Microsoft Application Virtualization. The upcoming Microsoft Application Virtualization 4.5 improves this functionality even more.

Edgesight 5.0 - Resource Manager
Next to an update to Edgesight product in the form of Edgesight 5.0, Presentation Server Delaware is the first release that supposedly will integrate some of the performance monitoring capabilities of Edgesight into Resource Manager. It will be interesting to see how this turns out. Al though Edgesight is a product with great potential, Citrix’ has made a questionable move in making it only available for Platinum Customers (non-Platinum customers can also buy Edgesight as a separate product but the associated cost usually is too high).
I do not know how this integration will take place but one hopes that Delaware will expand Resource Manager from just monitoring the performance from a server perspective to monitoring the performance from a user perspective as well.

Preferential Load Balancing
Presentation Server Delaware will also incorporate something called “preferential load balancing”. What is preferential load balancing? It’s about providing users with a more predictable and consistent user experience by assigning certain applications and users with a higher priority than others.

I know this is a rather vague description. Consider the CPU optimization in PS 4.5, it works in kind of the same way. Each user gets appointed an equal share of the CPU. Any user can still claim 80% of the CPU if the other users are not using their shares but if the other users want their share, this means that the user wanting the 80% CPU cannot claim the CPU for 80% anymore. The only difference in concept with the preferential load balancing is that the CPU sharing is based (by default) on fair sharing and preferential load balancing by its very nature is based on different shares for different users and applications.

I hope that preferential load balancing in Presentation Server Delaware is more than just assigning different CPU shares to different users because this could already be done via the registry. If all preferential load balancing adds in Presentation Server Delaware is a GUI to set CPU shares then it would be a shame.

I suspect preferential load balancing to be a lot more, especially since this feature will be incorporating the technology from the Aurema acquisition.