Processor Magazine is asking how small and medium sized businesses are challenged by laptop management:

Notebooks are outselling desktops. IDC reported that, for the first time in the U.S., notebook PCs outsold desktop PCs for all Q3 2008. We knew this shift was coming, but what does it mean for IT? What are the new challenges facing IT managers, and how will they change their approach to PC management?

Making laptops easier to manage is a key area of focus for us at Virtual Computer, and Dan McCall, our CEO, provided some insight, including expanding on the challenges faced, such as patch management and backup strategy for laptops. Dan notes that SMEs, in particular, need turnkey solutions for provisioning, patching, security and backup.

The great thing about the NxTop model of centralized virtual desktop management with distributed execution on traditional PC hardware is that it provides countless scalability and mobility advantages for large enterprises while also scaling down very nicely to accommodate smaller organizations that find the server-hosted desktop model too costly and complex.

Dan McCall, our CEO, contributed a guest post that appeared on David Marshall’s VMblog today.  In it, he explores some of the key questions that IT managers should consider when evaluating desktop virtualization approaches:

1. What are the real business drivers for desktop virtualization?
2. Do virtual desktops need to run on a server?
3. What about PC-hosted desktop solutions that already exist?
4. What will a mainstream desktop virtualization solution look like?
5. Will the end-users be happy with the solution?

Full post is here. It is an interesting read if you would like to understand more about what drives us here at Virtual Computer.

Chris Wolf from Burton Group did a nice wrap-up post on the virtualization panel at the Catalyst Europe conference that featured our CEO, Dan McCall.  We were pleased that virtual machine interoperability was a key topic of discussion.  This is an area that is near and dear to us.  Chris highlighted the fact that Citrix has taken steps on the server side to make virtual machines created on XenServer capable of running on Microsoft Hyper-V without conversion.

These types of initiatives are extremely positive in our view, as anything that makes life easier for corporations to deploy virtualization in multi-vendor environments is ultimately good for all of us.  Each virtualization vendor would love to “own” an account, and the customers themselves would likely prefer to standardize on a specific virtualization technology.  However, the reality is that vendor relationships evolve, companies acquire other companies, and IT environments ultimately end up looking a bit more complex than anyone would prefer.

At Virtual Computer, we have been focused on interoperability since day one.  We felt it was necessary to deliver a solution to the marketplace that would interoperate with major virtualization platforms natively without conversions.   We incorporated into our client-optimized bare metal hypervisor full, conversion-free interoperability with Microsoft virtualization technologies such as Hyper-V, Virtual Server, and Virtual PC.  We are also very pleased by the efforts going on in the DMTF and the virtualization industry to define a common interchange format – OVF – that would facilitate interoperability between various virtualization platforms.

Bottom line people should stop obsessing about choosing the “right” virtualization technology – interoperability between platforms removes the angst of the decision.  And at the end of the day virtualization technology is just that – a technology; and what kind of solution one delivers with that technology is what really matters the most.

This week, Burton Group is holding its Catalyst Europe conference in Prague. If you are planning to attend, be sure to check out Chris Wolf’s “Debating the Hypervisor’s Future” panel Tuesday afternoon. Our fearless leader Dan McCall will be joining other virtualization industry thought leaders, such as VMware CTO Steve Herrod and Citrix’s Ian Pratt, to debate the future of hypervisor technology.

It should be a spirited discussion that will likely cover a range of topics such as proprietary versus open source hypervisor approaches and the emergence of the client hypervisor. We are pleased to be have been invited to join the panel and proud of the fact that in less than two months we have gone from stealth company to a unique new voice on the global virtualization industry stage.

As a new company, we’re often asked who we are and what we do. Well, let’s answer the “who” starting with our management team:

Dan McCall is Virtual Computer’s president and CEO. Before starting Virtual Computer with Alex, Dan was a co-founder of Guardent, which was sold to VeriSign. Dan started as a software engineer back in 1983 and aspired to drive the “then” car on our home page.

Alex Vasilevsky was the co-founder of Virtual Computer with Dan and is our chief technology officer. Alex has a great background in the virtualization space and was a co-founder of Virtual Iron, a well known player in the server virtualization space. Alex holds six US and European patents and is a primary inventor on sixteen pending patents.

Peter Marconi, our VP of Engineering, has been very successful building both teams and products. At Virtual Computer, he’s done it again with a top notch team and our upcoming product. Peter is the holder of several patents in hardware architecture and mechanical chassis design.

Doug Lane is the Director of Product Management at Virtual Computer and is focused on making sure that our upcoming product is designed with the customer in mind. Working on technology products for the past twelve years, Doug knows the importance of making the customer happy with a product that works as promised. Doug is practicing hard for our Then vs. Now Bowling Challenge at VMworld even though he’s not eligible for any of the prizes. Stop by our booth (#562) and take the challenge.