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Tuesday, September 22, 2009
MindSHIFT, Akamai grow Boston-area virtualization development
By Galen Moore
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Two new Boston-area companies are competing for desktop virtualization customers, adding their names to the growing list of Boston-area companies aiming to spur growth in the underdeveloped sector.
Waltham-based and Fairfax, Va.-based MindSHIFT Technologies Inc. last week launched NextDesktop, which provides a hosted desktop-as-a-service starting at $40 a month per seat, aimed at small business.
This week, Cambridge-based Akamai Technologies Inc. (Nasdaq: AKAM) introduced software designed to reduce packet loss and latency issues that come with delivering virtual desktop services over the Internet.
The two new companies join Viewfinity Inc. and Virtual Computer Inc., both of which launched enterprise desktop virtualization products earlier this year. While true desktop virtualization provides client-machine images from servers, MindSHIFT, a hosted software and IT services provider, provides a hosted desktop via the web. The company uses a third-party anti-latency software called Performance IP, made by InterNAP Network Services (Nasdaq: INAP), to deliver the desktop environment, files and applications via Microsoft’s Remote Desktop.
Administrators get a web-based dashboard that allows them to provision desktops and applications to users.
“What we brought to the technology is our operational expertise, because we do this already in another business unit for a few thousand lawyers at a much higher price point,” said senior technology executive Ravi Agarwal, who joined MindSHIFT in its 2008 acquisition of Burlington-based SaaS provider Collaboration Online Ltd. Co.
NextDesktop could run up against obstacles to adoption if performance lags due to latency or bandwidth, said Mark Bowker, an analyst with the Enterprise Strategy Group. Customers will also be reluctant if it can’t work alongside applications users need, he said.
“I suspect that model for certain size of business is pretty interesting. I just get concerned about 100 percent application compatibility — if it can’t run Flash or it doesn’t have some codex installed,” he said.
The suite of hosted applications available through the service is currently limited to Microsoft Office. The company is working on adding Intuit’s Quickbooks software, the bookkeeping application commonly used by small businesses, Agarwal said.
Akamai’s new software is based on the company’s Akamai IP Application Accelerator technology, which is designed to avoid the need to build private networks to deliver virtualized applications and desktop environments. The software uses dynamic mapping, route optimization, packet redundancy algorithms and transport protocol optimization, according to Akamai’s press release.
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