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Should VMWare Watch Out For VirtualBox?

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Or for a lot more?

IT Wire has a good introductory article about VirtualBox.

Sadly their introduction is a bit wrong in the details, as VirtualBox obviously is not “the only professional virtualisation solution that is freely available as open source software under the GNU General Public License (GPL.) Why this matters is because it’s truly free, as in freedom.”

Amongst others Xen is also fully GPL, and given its backing from both Citrix and most of the major Linux vendors it’s also professionally supported.

Also it also isn’t the only one that can run unmodified guests , both KVM and Xen can do this, given the these days standard VT hardware support. VirtualBox however does not need VT support (and neither did Qemu).

However, it’s still a fairly good introduction and keeping these remarks in mind it’s a good read, and it shows that VMWare should watch its back, and not just for VirtualBox

Will Unidesk Bring Anything New to the VDI Table?

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VMBlog is reporting that a new desktop virtualization management startup called Unidesk is about to break out of stealth mode. (note: the Unidesk website is still under construction as some titles and text snippets appear to be missing)

Founded in December of last year, Unidesk raised a total of $8.1 million this year from Matrix Partners and North Bridge Venture Partners. It has a strong management team, and recently opened up a second office in India next to their existing Marlborough offices. Their core offers are named “Composite Virtualization“ and “Desktop Management 2.0” and they claim it will dramatically simplify desktop management for enterprise IT organizations.

“Building on a core invention called Composite Virtualization™, Unidesk will offer IT organizations the desktop control they’ve been seeking to reduce costs, improve service levels, and tighten security, while, at the same time, give lines of business the desktop freedom they require to maximize knowledge worker innovation and productivity. Unidesk’s family of “Desktop Management 2.0™” solutions will provide the highly efficient image management, application delivery, and personalization capabilities that are currently missing from Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI) products from VMware and Citrix, and extend these same capabilities to non-VDI-based laptops and thick desktops so IT can easily support off-network computing. By eliminating the barriers to VDI adoption and enabling all desktops to be virtualized under a common management platform, Unidesk’s game-changing technology will accelerate the multi-billion dollar desktop virtualization market, and deliver significant returns to employees, investors, customers, and business partners.”

There’s not much else we can gather from the website, apart from the fact that the company is planning a free trial version, and that they’re hiring a bunch of people who will get – at least- a free mug (see here).

Unidesk

Big in Japan: NEC Soft and DataCore Renew OEM Agreement

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NEC Soft and DataCore Software today announced the renewal of their OEM relationship under which NEC Soft builds and markets its MelodiousStor storage virtualization appliance.

Japan is moving to server virtualization. The benefits are undeniable and cannot be resisted in a competitive, global economy. It has been observed elsewhere that the rise in adoption of server virtualization causes customers to think differently about their storage. They want their storage to become as mobile and efficient as their virtual machines, and they are very interested in how they can build excellent flexibility and storage provisioning efficiency into their existing storage environments, while at the same time addressing increased requirements for storage protection, availability and performance inherent in a virtual server environment.

NEC Soft and DataCore believe that Japan’s adoption of storage virtualization will occur in parallel to its adoption of server virtualization, which is currently well underway. By combining NEC Soft’s expertise and acceptance in the Japanese market with DataCore’s storage virtualization and advanced storage management, the two companies are offering Japanese customers the opportunity to integrate into their existing storage environment important advances in thin provisioning capacity allocation, high performance data caching, high availability, disaster recovery and data migration.

NEC Soft, which through its related companies also offers VMware and Microsoft solutions, will market the DataCore, VMware and Microsoft virtual server solutions separately and as part of a Total Enterprise Virtualization solution offering.

DataCore Software

Sun Offers Early Access to xVM Server, Public Version Coming Soon

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Sun Microsystems has begun an early access program for its xVM Server hypervisor, a key component of its upcoming virtualization product line, and intends to make a publicly downloadable version available within about a month, according to a blog post last week by Steve Wilson, VP of xVM at Sun.

Update: see RedMonk’s Michael Coté review and demo the xVM Server hypervisor.

“Given that we’re getting very close to shipping, it’s time to give everyone an update on progress and do a more in-depth sneak peek at features than I’ve done in the past.  First, a quick reminder about what’s included in the xVM Portfolio so you can see where xVM Server fits.  The picture below shows how this fits together.  We have xVM VirtualBox for small scale desktop virtualization, and VDI as a management layer that scales out to very large-scale desktop consolidation projects. Then, on the server side, we have xVM Server as the software to virtualize a single server, and xVM Ops Center as the management tool for large scale virtual and physical data center.  xVM VirtualBox, xVM Ops Center and VDI are all commercially available today and rapidly being deployed by customers.”

Sun Microsystems

IGEL Technology Announces Certification For VMware Virtual Desktop Manager

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Igel Technology recently announced certification for VMware Virtual Desktop Manager, VMware’s connection broker, on IGEL’s Microsoft Windows XP Embedded range of Universal Desktops.

The software is available recently as a partial update for IGEL’s Windows XP Embedded models, and allows customers deploying VMware Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI) to deliver an enhanced user experience.

IGEL Windows XP Embedded based Universal Desktops add additional unique benefits to VMware VDI hosted PCs. They contain many digital services above the standard Microsoft RDP, Internet Explorer and Windows Media Player. For example, most models come with built-in Java Runtime Environments, terminal emulation and PDF readers, allowing users to deliver certain server-based applications outside the virtual connection. This helps organizations reduce server load and enhance the desktop experience. In addition, all models come with a ThinPrint client, allowing organizations to implement sophisticated print management in VMware VDI environments as well as IGEL’s Multiscreen Agent, a free-of-charge server-side software application, designed for multi monitor environments, that allows users to maximize applications to dedicated screens even with a spanned VMware virtual desktop.

Surgient Partners With Capgemini, IPO or Acquisition Imminent?

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Capgemini, provider of consulting, technology and outsourcing services, announced today that Capgemini Financial Services USA has signed an alliance agreement with Surgient.

“By partnering with Surgient, we can now offer clients access to environment configurations through a centrally managed, shared service, eliminating manual provisioning work and delivering much higher utilization of expensive pre-production infrastructure. The results expected are shorter response times, reduced costs and ultimately, better business support,” said Charlie Li, vice president of the Quality Management and Testing Practice at Capgemini’s Financial Services Strategic Business Unit. “Delivering quality applications is closely tied to performance and reputation — and with this innovative virtualization solution, we can help global firms become more agile and better focus on their frontier application strategy in meeting their diverse and growing business needs.”

Meanwhile, VMblog points to a month old article on Austin Business Journal about Surgient, speculating about a future IPO or acquisition.

Surgient apparently hit its stride this year after tweaking its sales approach last summer, allowing companies to buy licenses for its virtual lab management software. President and CEO Tim Lucas says the growing popularity of virtualization gave Surgient the boost and a chance to double its revenue this year.

Lucas expects revenue to exceed $20 million for 2008.  And the company has recently signed 20 large customer deals, including German tech companies SAP AG and Siemans AG.  “We’re profitable now and cash flow is funding the growth of the business,” he says.

A report by The 451 Group cites HP and Borland Software as possible buyers of the Austin company. Lucas agrees that acquisition is a possibility but says an initial public offering could be considered as well.

Surgient