Startup Launches `Desktops as a Service`

MokaFive features automatic updates, self-healing from spyware and malware (through MokaFive's Rejuvenation technology that allows users to simply shut down and restart a LivePC if security is ever breached by any threat, including rootkit or zero-day vulnerability attacks), and cross-platform and OS flexibility. 

The desktop virtualization market is growing quickly, according to Gartner Group, which reported that in 2006 "fewer than 5 million PCs used the technology [OS-to-hardware virtualization]; by 2011, that figure is expected to increase to more than 660 million."

Analysts predict that PC virtualization technology will be commonplace in almost all data centers and in most homes and offices within the next two years.

"It will become an increasingly critical component of future enterprise desktop computing environments," IDC research analyst Michael Rose told eWEEK.

"One of the major benefits of MokaFive is the enablement of secure mobility without sacrificing end-user capabilities,” Rose said.

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Therefore, “organizations with significant security challenges or challenges related to regulatory compliance would find MokaFive's technology to have particular value," he added.

MokaFive, based in Redwood City, Calif., will officially introduce itself and its new product April 8 at the IDC Virtualization Forum in San Francisco. On April 10, it will stage its first public demonstration at SAP Labs in Palo Alto, Calif.

The new offering is based on more than 10 years of research at Stanford University, partly funded by the National Science Foundation.

No stranger to virtualization, Khosla is also one of the key backers—along with former Oracle President Ray Lane and Veritas co-founder Mark Leslie—of Xsigo, which provides I/O virtualization software for data centers.

A 30-day free trial of MokaFive is available for download here. General availability is scheduled for later in the second quarter of 2008, said Yang.