The NxTop beta program we kicked off in November is moving full speed ahead. (Note that unlike with recent posts, I resisted the urge to use either a train or spaceship analogy.) We recently entered Beta Phase 2, which included a software upgrade for our existing beta sites, as well installation of a bunch of new beta sites in the US and Europe.

Another important part of this process has been ramping up our own internal usage of NxTop.  We’ve had our hands on the product all day, every day for quite a while, but there is still a difference between that and “eating our own dogfood” for day-to-day PC usage.

Over the last month or two, we have been making a concerted effort to get as many internal users as possible on NxTop, and we have a reached pretty impressive critical mass of internal NxTop users.  This is not limited to engineers.  My entire product management and marketing team is cut over, and we actually made our sales folks install NxTop Engine themselves on their PCs.  I am thinking we may have a GEICO-esque marketing campaign on our hands: “So easy, even a salesperson can do it!”  (Sorry guys, I couldn’t resist.)

We have been working hard on this product for a while, and it’s a blast to be able to see it in action every day.  It is still a little rough around the edges in places, but it is amazing to see the progress between development releases.  We use Agile development at Virtual Computer, so as internal users or beta testers find bugs or make suggestions, they don’t just go into a black hole.  Fixes and improvements show up every couple of weeks.

I am running a mix of application staples, such as Microsoft Office and iTunes, installed directly into the NxTop virtual machine, as well as my own personal mix of virtualized applications (Skype, Firefox, etc.) layered on top of our shared corporate base virtual machine.  When the time comes to patch Windows, we just patch a single master virtual machine on NxTop Center, and each of our individual NxTop-enabled PCs is updated in the background while we are still using the earlier version.  On the next reboot, we’re fully patched.

If you would like to be added to our beta program waiting list, I encourage you to register on our web site.  You can also sign up to receive general product updates and availability information in the future.

We are celebrating a major milestone at Virtual Computer this week, as we now have our first NxTop beta customer up and running.  We would like to thank Steve Dale for being the first to take the plunge. He’s the guy on the right who looks like he would think nothing of riding his Harley over to our office to “express his displeasure” if things aren’t working correctly. We have a debate going internally here about whether Mark from our engineering team (left) is really so soft that he needs to wear a winter hat and coat in an air conditioned data center, or if he was just prepared for a quick getaway if the install went south (thankfully, it didn’t).

All joking aside, one of the most rewarding things about working at Virtual Computer has been setting very aggressive goals for ourselves and then working as a team to deliver the impossible. When we first began work on NxTop, our goal of having a working end-to-end product that we could “wow” people with at VMworld in September followed by a beta in November seemed a bit outlandish. We are now two-for-two thanks to the hard work of our engineering team, the innovation and drive of our VP of Engineering, and a CTO with a big idea and an uncanny ability to knock down any technical obstacle in our way.

We have had overwhelming interest in the NxTop beta program, and we will continue to grow our base of beta implementations in the coming weeks and months.  If you have already expressed interested and haven’t heard from us yet, you will soon.  If you haven’t yet expressed interest and would like to, you can do so here.

Happy Thanksgiving!

We’re looking for beta testers! If you’re interested in being a part of the NxTop Beta, let us know.

From the NxTop Beta application form:

Virtual Computer is pleased to announce that its highly anticipated NxTop PC management platform will be released to a select number of Beta customers beginning in Q4 2008.

The NxTop Beta program will begin with a gradual rollout to an initial set of Beta users with specific usages and PC hardware profiles. The program will expand to a broader case of Beta users over time, continuing into Q1 2009. To help us evaluate your potential fit for the NxTop Beta program, please fill out the application form below and provide some general information about your organization.