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Home > CIO News > Startup gives virtualized twist to mobile computing |
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In fact, the digital desktop does not even have to be carried around. In one version of the new offerings from RingCube, MojoNet, the user's workstation is streamed to the host computer over the Internet. Analysts familiar with MojoPac say the innovative technology moves companies closer to a workplace reality where employees move seamlessly between personal and corporate work, and computing lives are not tied to a piece of hardware. "From a corporation's perspective, it is like the Second Coming," said Rob Enderle, principal analyst at San Jose-based Enderle Group. "The corporations right now have to manage a unique software image for every piece of hardware they have. With something like this, in theory, they can leave the management of the machine's specific software up to the hardware manufacturers, and then they only have to mange one thing -- and that is the user. It eliminates a lot to the unfortunate complexity that has built up around this whole image management thing." In addition to simplifying the task of managing desktops, the MojoPac software reduces "rather dramatically" the security profile of employees working from home, Enderle said, and provides many of the advantages of virtualization without the performance penalty.
"Typically your machine runs 20% to 40% slower with virtualization because it also has to run all this other stuff. With MojoPac you only take a 1.2% performance penalty, because there is a lot less stuff you have to run to make it work," Enderle said. Neil MacDonald, vice president of information security research at Stamford, Conn.-based Gartner, said the MojoPac has limitations. A legal license is required for each operating system installed, so if your permanent desktop and your Mojo desktop both need an application, you'll likely need two licenses, he said. The MojoPac agent requires administrative access to install in a target machine, so it would be hard to walk up to an Internet kiosk and assume it will work. It supports only Windows and Windows applications, and if you have a Windows desktop "in the cloud" and one on a physical device, like a USB, there as yet is no way to synchronize the two. Still, the positives far outweigh the caveats, said MacDonald, a MojoPac fan. The software does not require another copy of the Windows operating system, it supports Windows applications and USB, PC- and network-based "portable personality" images. "We think it is the best example of the portable personality on the market today," MacDonald said. Play pals RingCube CEO Shan Appajodu said the company avoids the term virtualization when describing its products, preferring to call itself a provider of managed digital workspaces. Formed in 2004 and with $16 million in venture capital behind it, RingCube took a page from companies such as WebEx, testing the product first with consumers. "A lot of gamers like our products, using it as a portable PC game cartridge," Appajodu said. The strategy, capitalizing on the so-called consumerization of IT, gave RingCube valuable feedback for improving the product, he said, and an independent sales force when the company started calling on corporate customers. "Had we gone out as a virtualization company, we would have been forced to explain to the CIO or the IT head how we differ from VMWare," Appajodu said. When the company sets up a call, even with some of the largest banks on Wall Street, invariably two people in the room will have already tried it. "So we don't have to do too much of a sell job. They jump in and say, tell us your security story, tell us your management tool story." Security is always an issue. The MojoPac workstation is password protected. Data encryption is supported by add-on software or with a USB storage device that encrypts the data stored on it. "Assuming the proper security protocols are used, you can leave the host PC unencrypted and relatively unsecured. If the user would do the personal stuff like playing games on their own side of the partition," Enderle said. If one of the MojoPacs gets stolen, you still have to report it, he said. More laptops are stolen for the laptop than the data, so it's prudent to keep the MojoPac storage device out of the laptop bag. Hot desking
Analyst Natalie Lambert, who covers virtualization at Forrester Research Inc. in Cambridge, Mass., said portability reconciles a paradox of many modern workplaces: It's hard to rationalize adding desktops for every new employee in a growing company with a mobile workface, when only 50% to 75% of the office is in on a given day. "In enterprise space, the idea of carrying around your machine on a USB means that any machine can be yours, so it allows for hot-desking, or the ability to quickly come into an office and find a place to work," Lambert said. She said virtualization technology is where corporate computing is headed, because it offers more control over the computing environment and the data. Third-party contractors can be supplied with USB disks that have the computing environment they need -- and no more, she said. When the worker leaves the company, that workstation can be deprovisioned with a click of a button. "It's a lot harder to do when you give them an entire PC," Lambert noted. The portable corporate desktop also gives the youngest members of the workforce the independence and customization they reportedly demand by allowing them to buy their own computers. "Give them the money, have them buy a computer, and send them a copy of the desktop," she said. The Microsoft factor Since the software platform requires a Windows environment, Appajodu said the company has taken pains to keep Microsoft abreast of its offerings, including the security functions that prevent pirating, and to explain how RingCube is not violating its licenses. So far, no complaints from the Redmond, Wash.-based goliath, Appajodu said.
One question corporate customers might want to ponder is how a small startup can supply a large company, Enderle said. "Just getting through the government cycle, for example, might bankrupt them." He suspects the full potential of the software technology will not be realized until RingCube becomes part of a larger company. But that will happen sooner rather than later, in his view. "Any one of the OEMs, were they to grab this company up, would have significant competitive advantage against any of the others. I know of at least one of the majors is looking at them very closely now," Enderle said. Let us know what you think about the story; email: Linda Tucci, Senior News Writer
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