A system and method are configured to provide a virtual application desktop and communication channel. The system includes a virtual machine executing on an operating system within which multiple applications can concurrently execute. A plurality of applications can each have a protected namespace and be configured to execute using the virtual machine. Each of the plurality of applications can have a request box. A centralized communication engine can be configured to control communications between each request box. In addition, the centralized communication engine can be configured to retrieve, transfer and distribute data between the request boxes of the plurality of applications in response to requests from the plurality of applications.