VMware on Tuesday took wraps off its Horizon App Manager, which is designed to streamline access to both personal as well as business-related cloud-based apps.

The management service, which will cost $30 per user, is the first product to arrive from VMware’s Project horizon range that was announced by the company in August last year.

The new service could extend internal user directories to cloud services without revealing user names and passwords.

To begin with, it will support software-as-a-service apps from Google, Cisco, Salesforce. com and VMware’s own Zimbra. Additional connectors can be created for other providers, by writing a SAML-based interface.

Advanced development director Noah Wasmer, at VMware, said, "We're going live with the first service to really help customers embrace cloud-based computing.”

Being a stand-alone product, VMware’s Horizon App Manager does not require the stalk it runs on to be virtualized using the company’s ESX hypervisor. It also does not need the company’s management services to function.

The Horizon App Manager has been made available to select early access customers in North America and Asia/Pacific region.