Yeah, this tool looks pretty cool and is really targetted to a different audience than their pure RDP client. Shape currently has clients for RDM, VNC and RDP. So far they have only released RDM+ for the Playbook. I hope it does well so that they have an incentive to port their pure RDP client over.
For those not familiar with the differences in the protocols, here is my understanding. Please take this with a grain of salt since I could get some of it wrong.
VNC is an open source remote desktop protocol. It has servers and clients available on all kinds of platforms and lots of flavors of both. The Playbook currently as two solid VNC client apps, namely aVNC and IMT-VNC(free). Installing it for use on your local network is pretty easy, but installing it for remote network access requires port forwarding on the router and or modem used in front of your desktop. I currently use IMT-VNC to access my laptop at home from the road and it works quite well, although the setup would be challenging for someone who isn't familiar with port forwarding and dynamic DNS issues. If you search for VNC you will see a thread where I've been trying to help some people get this setup and they do struggle with some of the concepts.
RDP is a remote desktop protocol that is proprietary to Microsoft, I believe, and the server software is already built in to many versions of windows. It also requires port forwarding and such to work from a remote location. It is often preferred by Windows system admins since the server software comes pre-installed on most Windows servers. Many folks here are hoping for a RDP client for Playbook so they can manage their windows servers remotely without having to install any additional software on the desktop/server machines.
RDM+, which is what Shape services has just released, is their own proprietary tool, I believe, that is really targetted at making it easier for non network admin folks to gain remote access to their own machines at home without having to learn all the intricacies of port forwarding and dynamic DNS and such. You buy the $9.99 app for your playbook and you install a free app on your home machines. There are servers that both systems talk to on the internet to make the connection, so you don't need ports forwarded, etc.. So this is really more for the casual user. It seems like a great solution for anyone who needs access to their machine from the road but doesn't want to deal with any hassle to set it all up.
Hope that clarifies things a bit..
If anyone tries out this RDM+ app, please give us a review.. Does it support right click actions? Does it support audio forwarding? What can it do and what does it not do? What is your overall impression of the performance? Let us know your thoughts! I will likely recommend it to some of the people struggling to get VNC setup for remote access if it works well.