Desktone, Inc., the pioneer of Desktops as a Service, today announced Desktone 3, making it easier than ever for Desktone and service providers to build and support large-scale, cloud-hosted desktop offerings at attractive prices. With desktops in the cloud, customers gain all of the benefits of virtual desktops with no upfront costs or hardware/software deployment.

In 2008, Desktone developed the industry’s first virtual desktop hosting platform, introducing the concept of desktops as a service (DaaS). It remains the only company providing a platform specifically architected with multi-tenancy and a service grid, making it the only product capable of delivering true desktops in the cloud. With this announcement, Desktone unveils new capabilities that improve desktop manageability; enhance access with support for mobile devices including Apple iPad, iPhone and iPod Touch; and provide more technology options that help lower costs and reduce vendor lock-in. In a separate announcement today, Desktone launched the Desktone Cloud, a new service by Desktone and Rackspace that is powered by Desktone Platform 3 and offers the industry’s most affordable virtual desktops, at $1/day.

“We built our platform around flexibility and scale so that we could get customers up and running quickly. Now we’re continuing to drive the industry forward by enhancing our ability to deliver and support next-generation desktops,” said Peter McKay, CEO of Desktone. “The fact that more than a dozen leading global services providers rely on the Desktone Platform to power their desktop cloud offerings is testament to the value our solution delivers to their businesses.”

“We chose Desktone because it is the only purpose-built platform for delivering virtual desktops in the cloud,” said Jan Jackman, VP, Global Cloud Services, IBM Global Services. “With its latest capabilities, the Desktone platform gives us even greater flexibility in the type of desktop services we offer. And its support for Linux desktops provides us options for delivering virtual desktops for a variety of needs, while keeping costs low and price points compelling for our customers.”

“Desktone designed its solution specifically to support large-scale, multi-tenant cloud-hosted desktop environments. By using the Desktone Platform as the foundation for our offering, we’re able to accelerate project timelines while delivering cost-effective services to our customers; easily change our environment to meet variable demand; and extend our reach by deploying customer virtual desktops wherever they are needed,” said Robin Tapp, Managing Director of Client Services for Molten Technologies.

“When customers are looking at delivering virtual desktops from the cloud, there are two key technology requirements – a virtual infrastructure that is cloud-proven and enterprise-ready, and a delivery infrastructure that can deliver the best possible experience independent of a user location and device,” said N. Louis Shipley, Group Vice President and General Manager, XenServer Product Group for Citrix. “Added support for Citrix XenServer in Desktone 3 will provide the required virtual infrastructure at a fraction of the cost of other platforms, while support for HDX will provide the delivery infrastructure with 90 percent lower bandwidth requirement than any other virtual desktop delivery technology available in the market. By adding support for these two key Citrix technologies, Desktone is providing the flexibility customers need while helping drive down the costs of cloud-based virtual desktops.”

New capabilities in Desktone 3 include:

• Mobile device accessibility:
  • Desktone DaaS Mobile Client, which allows Apple iPad, iPhone and iPod Touch users to access their desktops anywhere, anytime.
  • Desktone DaaS Client, providing integration with corporate VPNs to allow seamless remote connectivity.
• Hypervisor agnostic, with added support for Citrix XenServer and Red Hat Enterprise Virtualization (based on the Kernel-based Virtual Machine - KVM) hypervisors, in addition to existing support for VMware vSphere.
• Linux desktop support, enabling the industry’s only virtual Linux desktop in the cloud.
• New support for Citrix HDX and HP RGS which, in addition to existing support for Microsoft RDP, gives service providers the choice of multiple remote display protocols.
• Extended localization via the Desktone web console, which allows for administration in 20 languages, including newly added support for French, German, Spanish, Simplified Chinese, and Japanese.

Desktone’s architecture was built for delivering cloud-hosted virtual desktops, unlike traditional offerings. Features such as multi-tenancy, grid architecture, role separation, and cloud economics achieved through substantial use of open source, are what make the Desktone offering unique.

Availability

Desktone 3 powers a new Desktone Cloud service. By combining Rackspace’s secure enterprise-class data center with Desktone’s scalable platform, the Desktone Cloud enables customers to quickly benefit from virtual desktops at a cost that is significantly lower than those typically associated with virtual and traditional desktop environments. The platform also powers cloud offerings delivered by leading service providers including IBM, Verizon, Infosys, Marubeni, Molten Technologies and BTS. Service providers that are interested in delivering Desktone-powered DaaS can click here.