Greetings from sunny Cannes, where a team of us from Virtual Computer is in town for VMworld Europe 2009.  We weren’t really sure what the turnout would be given the state of the global economy and the corresponding pressure on IT travel budgets.  However, we were pleasantly surprised by a strong showing by both exhibitors and conference attendees.

The biggest news of the show so far has been VMware’s announcement with Intel to collaborate on bare metal client hypervisor technology.  It made a pretty good splash though many (myself included) are viewing it as a bit of a “me too” announcement given the Intel partnership that Citrix announced back in January in conjunction with their Project Independence initiative.  As a startup, the first instinct is to get a bit nervous when larger industry players begin to jump into your sandbox.  However, in our case it has provided tremendous validation of the technology model we have been focused on since 2007.  Both the Citrix and VMware client hypervisor announcements have generated tremendous inbound interest in Virtual Computer, since many recognize that we have a pretty significant lead in the race to deliver centralized PC desktop management using bare metal client hypervisor technology.

I was excited to be invited by Virtual Strategy Magazine to contribute some of my perspectives on the VMworld Europe festivities as part of their event coverage.  I have tried to keep these posts a bit more vendor-neutral than my posts here on the Virtual Computer blog, and hopefully they provide a good general flavor for what is going on at the show.  Visit Virtual Strategy’s VMworld Europe coverage center for reports from me and other contributors in attendance.

On the heels of Alex’s “Why Bare is Better” post last week, Yi-Jian Ngo of Microsoft is highlighting how “bare metal” client virtualization technology may be the key to driving mass adoption of desktop virtualization. Yi-Jian is the guy who takes startups like us by the hand and helps them navigate the waters at Microsoft, and it was great to finally meet him in person last week at VMworld. Yi Jian is discussing what he calls Desktop Virtualization 2.0 on his Core Infrastructure blog. In the post he discusses the two current definitions of desktop virtualization.

The first is what he calls “the model of virtual machines running in the bowels of the datacenter/cloud and projected out to users” – this is traditional desktop virtualization, or VDI. The second is where Virtual Computer’s NxTop is: running virtual desktops on the bare metal of a PC. Three use cases are mentioned:

The use cases for bare metal client virtualization are still emerging, though there are at least three that come to mind. One is the ability to deploy a locked-down workspace for corporate use side-by-side with a second workspace that end-users can modify but is walled off from certain resources, simultaneously maintaining ease of management while allowing some degree of end-user flexibility. Second is the quick deployment of policy-compliant workspaces to clients used by temporary or guest workers. And third is the offloading of certain utilities, particularly desktop security software, onto a separate virtual machine – possibly portending the arrival of desktop virtual appliances.

Absolutely right. We’ve been talking with hundreds of IT administrators responsible for PC management and find these to be among the top use cases for NxTop. It boils down to this: NxTop needs to make overall laptop and desktop management easier, more secure and quick to deploy. For the end-user, it needs to offer everything they’ve come to expect from a desktop experience.

Greetings from VMworld in Las Vegas, where earlier today we announced something we’ve been having a really hard time keeping a secret: NxTop. Since we just announced it today, you might not know what NxTop is. Quite simply: NxTop makes it easy to manage thousands of PCs (either laptops or desktops) just as you would manage one – without agents and without compromising the end user experience in any way.

How do we do this? We’re combining a bare-metal PC virtualization platform with a powerful management console for IT admins (with a nice web interface!) – which means that PC management just got a whole lot easier and more secure.

We’ve shared our plans for NxTop with real world IT administrators and industry analysts and they’re letting us know this is what they need:

“NxTop is the first desktop virtualization product I have seen that delivers extensive manageability and rigorous security benefits while respecting the individual business needs of mobile users,” said John Christly, manager of Information Technology Security and HIPAA security officer for Memorial Healthcare System of Miramar, Florida. “My department is managing a large number of laptops and as a healthcare organization, security of these laptops and the data on each of them is a top priority. In the past few years, we’ve read of too many companies that have experienced data loss or security breaches. We are always seeking new and innovative methods of system and data security. Therefore, I welcome a product like NxTop, which will fill a market need that has been unmet for quite some time.”

For more information, check out our website, which we just relaunched today with full product information and use cases.

Leave a comment and let me know what you think of NxTop or, if you’re at VMworld, stop by our booth for a demo (we’re in booth #562). I’m eager to hear what you have to say.

We’ve officially launched Virtual Computer, Inc. and couldn’t be happier! After many months of hard work, we’re excited for you and the rest of the world to learn more about what we’ve been working on.

Our press release — Old Road Computing Emerges from Stealth to Launch as Virtual Computer, Inc. – is available on our brand new website and explains that “Virtual Computer will deliver solutions that capitalize on virtualization technology to reduce the cost of managing corporate PCs while improving their reliability, security, and usability.”

It’ll be a bit longer before we announce exactly what our product is and does (let us know who you are and we’ll make sure you are among the first to hear about our upcoming product).

Virtualization.com picked up on our company launch news and talks a little about what we’re doing:

The software would be designed to isolate a laptop’s four major components — hardware, operating system, applications and user data — and create versions on the laptop of those components that operate remotely, without a network connection. The software would operate transparently for the user and it would enable wholesale security updates and other types of upgrades when connected to the network. Isolating the portions of the system enables it to limit access to work-related applications while enabling users to install their own personal preferences on the device.

As I said earlier, much more to come. Contact us at info@virtualcomputer.com and let us know what you think or leave us a comment here on the blog.

Earlier this week, I noted HP’s increase in laptop sales (sure to be followed up by similar increases at other vendors) and it got me thinking about how difficult in can be to manage all of those mobile desktops. Besides the basics of desktop management (patches, updates and so on), there are all of the usual security issues and brand new ones (theft is a bigger issue when laptops are “out in the world” and it’s more likely that some form of malware will be installed when someone is using their work laptop to surf the web at home). One has to be careful and diligent about laptop management, even moreso than “regular” desktop management.

Don’t get me wrong: laptops offer many benefits over traditional desktops and the decreased cost of laptops is allowing more and more people to see these benefits — and as an end-user, I love the flexibility my laptop offers me.

Are you responsible for laptop management? What are your concerns? Leave a comment and let me know.

What’s the difference between desktop management and laptop management? You go to the desktops but the laptops come to you.

It’s a simplistic view but it’s generally true. Managing desktops can be fairly straight forward (again, a simplistic view) — something needs to get done, you go to the desktops and do whatever it is that needs to get done. Managing laptops can be a bit more difficult because they can be moved around, taken home or taken on the road.

An IT admin that I know says this is one of the consistent frustrations that he deals with, especially on a patch day. He can go around during lunch, meetings or after people have gone home but tracking down the laptops in the office gives him grief.

When it comes to management of your company’s PCs, what is your top concern: the management of those desktops or the security of those desktops? If you’re using some form of desktop management software, or a combination of utilities that forms a desktop management strategy, are you looking for something that fits within your existing security setup or something that has security features of its own? Maybe you’re looking for both or — and I hope this isn’t the case – you’re not looking for security at all.

For many people, it’s one or the other. Security often trumps the actual management of desktops (or vice versa). I don’t think this has to be the case. A good security system is flexible enough for all of your desktop management tools and good desktop management includes at least some security features but will always fit within any other security that is already in place.

I came across this research brief from Forrester while searching for something today:

As a desktop operations professional, you’ve managed to avoid getting down in the weeds with Microsoft licensing — unfortunately, times have changed. Desktop virtualization is forcing desktop managers to understand the world of Windows licensing to successfully get their desktop virtualization pilots up and running. To fully recognize how to approach licensing Windows for your deployment, you must first ask yourself what form of desktop virtualization you’re deploying. If it’s hosted desktop virtualization, you need to know what type of device is connecting to this environment. It’s no secret that these licensing requirements favor those with Microsoft Software Assurance (SA) agreements in place. Without SA, companies are in for a world of headaches getting desktop virtualization going while remaining in compliance with their Microsoft licensing contracts. The bottom line: Desktop managers must brush up on Windows licensing before moving forward with desktop virtualization.

I have not read the full research paper but the executive summary makes a good point: if you’re deploying desktop virtualization be sure to look at th big picture and licensing is a huge part of that. Forrester is focusing on Microsoft Windoows licensing in their research but the concept applies across the board.

It’s also good to revisit licensing later on, too, as many companies are thinking of updating licensing terms (or introducing new ones) for the various virtualization solutions that are available.

There’s no question that telecommuting is on the rise for so many reasons: gas prices are going up, companies are looking to offer employees a better balance of work and life, the price of laptops allow companies to issue more of them, broadband is available in almost every household and a host of other reasons.

There’s also no question that telecommuting can be a good thing but there are risks. The one that comes immediately to mind is that the more laptops that are out there, the greater the chance that sensitive company data will be compromised in some way. Laptops get stolen. They’re left around for others to access. Data is stored on USB drives or other portable media and something happens to those devices. Laptops are outside the company intranet. More personal (or non-authorized) software is installed, opening up those machines to greater security risks.

As telecommuting rises, so does the potential for all of these security risks. Finding a way to keep company data secure should be on the top of everyone’s mind.