Virtual Computer calls its client-
side hypervisor Distributed Desk-
top Virtualization. (See the related
review on page 16.)
ª We're working on a deal now
with Lenovo that will have our
hypervisor running on a whole
different class of machineÐ every-
thing from laptops to desktops,º
CEO Dan McCall told e WEEK.
ª Lenovo is seeing a convergence
between the thin client and the
desktop PC. Taking laptops asideÐ
because that's a different segment
of the market [since they are not
` tethered' machines]Ð there's actual
overlap between the high end of
the thin-client line and the low end
of the desktop line, with the low
end of desktops probably getting
more performance than thin clients.º
OS into the enterprise, albeit by a back
doorÐ desktop virtualization.
MokaFive is now available for
iPads and iPhones, and the Android
version isn't far behind. The com-
pany's MyLivePC can run Windows
on iPads (Flash supporters reading
this are probably celebrating) and
Both those segments, however, can
now run client-side virtualization,
McCall said, indicating that previous
laptop generations didn't have the
horsepower to run a local client and the
virtualization agent at the same time.
That's really the innovation we're
providing to this market right now.
Virtual Computer's Nx Top 3.1
RC1 will be available for download
April 19.
XenClient
Mac OS on Windows.
Virtual Computer
Virtual Computer gives users
some choices within deployments,
which could include a mix of desk-
tops, laptops and other mobile
devices. For example, McCall said,
a Nx Top (pronounced Nextop)-pow-
ered laptop could be running Win-
dows 7 locally on the client while at
the same time providing a separate
window into a server-based deploy-
ment of something else, such as
Citrix obtained XenClient as a
result of its $500 million acquisition
of XenSource in 2007. XenClient
is a high-performance hypervisor
(not open source) that runs directly
on the client device hardware. It
partitions resources of the virtual
machine, enabling multiple operat-
ing systems to run side by side in
complete isolation.
Linux or another Windows version.
ª We try not to get too religious
about how you want to run vir-tualization,º McCall said. ª We
allow you to lay down our product, Nx Top, at the base layer for all
these devicesÐ which are all essentially personal computers. Then
you make the choice about whether
you want to run your workload in
the data center on VMware ESX or
a Citrix XenServer environment, or
run your virtual machine locally.
XenClient does not stand alone
on the client. It needs to work in
tandem with Citrix Receiver and
Synchronizer for XenClient in order
for the central management to work.
XenClient was developed to work
with the hardware virtualization in
Intel© s vPro platform, which enables
better security and provides direct
access to the full graphics capabilities of the device. «
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