Desktone Blog

Dell Launches DVS DaaS with Desktone in Europe

Tue, 15 May 2012 12:00:00 EDT

Today Dell announced the Desktop Virtualization Solutions (DVS) Simplified DaaS offering built on Desktone in Europe. This is good news for a number of reasons. First, there is a ton of interest in Europe for a DaaS offering with data center capacity close to the end user. Secondly, there are many global organizations that have end users throughout the world who require multiple virtual desktop data center locations. This is extremely difficult with traditonal VDI. Most don't want to build VDI data centers in every location where they have end users.

One of the top use cases for DaaS and key differentiator from traditional on premises VDI is from global companies who may or may not have deployed VDI for headquarters. They now want a DaaS option to serve employees who are not close to the VDI datacenter. Location (and thus latency) is very important in order to deliver high end user performance. Large global service providers like Dell can offer desktops from dozens of data centers worldwide ensuring that end users are close to the desktop reducing latency and improving performance.

In order for a service provider to be able to deliver this functionality they will need virtual desktop platform that has multi-tenancy and multi data center management capabilities. Traditional VDI platforms do not offer this functionality and is one of the reasons why Desktone is chosen by the leading service providers.

Citrix Project Avalon: An Open Letter

Fri, 11 May 2012 12:00:00 EDT

I’m always glad when the month of May rolls around and we get a quick glimpse into the technology vision and projects happening inside the Citrix world. I’ve been a long time XenApp user and have always been impressed with the advancements and features that are introduced to drive the virtualized environment forward for the end user in the enterprise. The achievements are impressive and hard earned: HDX, Citrix receiver, virtualization and farm management to name a few. Well done!

So it was with great interest and appreciation when I heard yesterday that Citrix is now moving into the Cloud-hosted Desktops as a Service (DaaS) market with the newly announced technology preview of Project Avalon. Here at Desktone we have believed, and have been delivering on, the DaaS promise for service providers for more than five years. The appreciation comes of course, because the prominently heralded entry of a major player into the DaaS market typically means that the category is already being driven forward and has been validated at the highest levels of the industry.

With this in mind, we would like to share with Citrix just a few of the things that we have learned through more than five years of operational experience and interaction with our numerous service provider customers that are today supporting DaaS deployed desktops. We offer these lessons in good faith, especially since given the timeframe for Citrix’s offering, they have several months left to implement our direction into their offering. Here at Desktone, we very much want to shorten the time to offering for larger players that are just now entering this market with a software solution.

Managing Licensing - You should know in advance that Microsoft licensing does not allow for a DaaS solution for service providers. :) OK, the first one might be a little tongue-in-cheek, but you will need to know how to answer the question of how this offering is done and what it means to both service provider and end customer. Be sure to ignore all in the industry hype that say you can’t do full Windows 7.
Multi-tenancy Means More Than You Think - I know that this one is table stakes for a DaaS offering, but it is not to be taken lightly. There needs to be central views and management for the virtual management resources, storage allocation, networking assignment, storage and compute. Yes – compute. You will need to understand the actual VM workloads on a per tenant basis so that full efficiency can be achieved for SPLA based and open source operating systems, and that full compliance with dedicated hardware can be orchestrated for Microsoft client based operating systems.
The Platform Must Truly Scale - Every platform release will need to be extensively tested at massive scale. Some of your service providers will have customers that need to scale quickly from 300 to 300,000 desktops and the brokering, desktop management and resource allocation will need to answer both the high and low end of this scale.
One Size Does Not Fit All – Don’t make it Vanilla! - I know you understand this concept because of FlexCast for the enterprise. But don’t let that hype I mentioned in #1 keep you from offering persistent full featured Windows 7 DaaS. You can absolutely do it in a cost effective manner while dedicating hardware, just make sure you can scale and share resources across storage and management. It won’t be surprising that your platform will need to support any model of desktop or user workspace – from full Windows 7 desktops, to 1:1 Windows Servers skinned as desktops (usually for Microsoft SPLA licensing reasons), to session based desktops using RDS and even just straight application publishing. This is not to mention the obvious requirement to layer on top of these desktop models dynamic mappings, static mappings, persistent desktops and non-persistent desktops. We have found that in most large organizations, there is a need for all of these models – one size does not fit all for the service provider either.
Security Means Separation - It is critical that the solution will deliver full network separation between the tenants themselves (of course), but you also need to ensure a solid network separation between the tenant and the service provider. This will enable the customer to integrate back with their own data center resources such as Active Directory or patch management systems. Our experience has shown that aggregating tenants under Directory Services or establishing trust relationships will very much slow or even stop the process from moving forward because of security concerns. Most end customers will want to define their own gateways, DNS, DHCP services and especially subnet ranges. The security requirements demand that the DaaS offering is as much a part of their own environment as if it was just an extension of their own network environment.
Cost is Always a Trump Factor - Believe us from 5 years of offering this service – the service provider wants a cost effective model. They will drive you to eliminate cost on every hand – from the capital expenditure side of hardware to software, to the operational expenditure side of running the service. They don’t want to be managing more operating systems inside the data center. They really just want hardened virtual appliances that do not require the continuous monitoring, patching and updating of operating systems and databases in the management stack. That just adds to the op-ex costs and reduces their margins. They are really good with managing hardware (compute, storage, and networking), but they sure don’t want to reduce their profits by running all kinds of additional software.
Service Providers and Their Customers Want Role Separation - On the higher end of the market, you will find that customers do not want the Service Provider to have any access to their desktops. I guess that seems logical enough. As a service provider, you should be giving me the capacity, service, and SLAs; but I definitely don’t want your data center team to have access to my CEO’s desktop.
Multi Datacenter Support is Vital - Unsurprisingly, most large organizations are not geographically located in a single area. The service provider will want to enable and deliver capacity for a single tenant across data centers. I guess I start with the geography reasons, but this also applies to the customer who wants a data center distribution for business continuity or disaster recovery. For the end customer, they want all this to be transparent. They just want to check the box of whether they want their desktops in location A, location B or location A and B.
Offer On-Demand Self-Service & Try and Buy - You will find that most large organizations will want to have their own ability to provision their pools, manage their templates, and assign them to users – thank you very much. The opposite side of the spectrum is the SMB. Usually, they will be working with an outsourced IT group or Managed Service Provider (MSP) that handles this IT for them. It’s not a big deal, but in both cases they are looking for on-demand self-service. They simply want the service provider themselves to be a capacity distribution center – for DaaS, for IaaS or PaaS. After all, this is the “cloud” to them.
Keep it Easy, Easy, Easy - The last thing you will need to know as you begin with this offering, is the requirement to make this easy. First, make it easy for the service provider. They don’t want to have to deploy all kinds of stacks of software. Make it one platform that can handle the entire delivery and management of the desktops. On the other hand, the customer wants to test a cloud hosted desktop for the experience? Give them one. Make it non-persistent of course, but they want to try it out without committing to what I call the BAUF – Big Analysis Up Front. We know that the biggest barrier to VDI has been the complexity and cost. Our answer to that? Try it. Don’t know which use cases to start with? Give them a few desktops to install their own apps on and answer that question themselves. At this point in the game they don’t want to commit to virtual desktops. They want to test with a small group and grow from there. Try it – then buy it. Making it easy is the best recipe for success.

At Desktone, we are excited to be driving the next generation of user computing– cloud delivered desktops and workspaces. Our customers will tell you we are committed to providing solutions that are consistent with their strategic needs. The overriding lesson we’ve learned is that the most effective desktop models are user based. And right now, most of our end users want that desktop to look like their desktop at home. That same old persistent Windows 7 desktop that we all love to hate because of the management challenges.

The exciting thing as a DaaS platform provider is that we have for the past five years focused on helping the service provider enable their customers to move forward on that journey toward the next generation of desktop that delivers the right apps, the right data, the right environment, at the right time for the right user. I like to think of the platform as a cloud-based user-centric service broker. It’s the cloud. And we love it!

Desktone 5.0 Platform: Industry's Only Platform Supporting All Desktop Types

Wed, 02 May 2012 12:00:00 EDT

We are really excited to be announcing the next generation of the Desktone Platform. This is a huge milestone for Desktone as we have invested significant time, resources, and 5+ years of operational experience into building the next generation platform for our service providers and raising the bar for the industry. While some people have said that combining the benefits of the cloud with a comprehensive virtual desktop platform could not be done, Desktone continues to lead and innovate in the Desktops as a Service (DaaS) market.

This software release has been built from the ground up on three core concepts:

A single platform to deliver all desktop types
A single platform to orchestrate desktop distribution across multiple data centers
And a DaaS automation engine to enable on-demand self-service desktop consumption

Delivering multiple desktop types
The industry has long realized that desktops are not based on just a single use case or operating system. While the traditional full desktop experience might be based on full copies of Windows 7, Windows XP, or Linux, we recognize that a "desktop" might also be based on the Windows Server OS for a desktop-like experience with a 1:1 ratio of users to desktops, or they might be server sessions based on Windows Remote Desktop Services (RDSH). There is no one size fits all for the on-premise solution, and there is definitely not a one-size-fits-all for the service provider to offer DaaS in a multi-tenant environment. Desktone is bringing to market the first platform for service providers to offer all types of desktops under a single platform.

Multi-data center support
This new multi-data center management capability allows the service provider to offer the best end user experience by allocating desktop capacity in the data center which offers the lowest latency. Each tenant is then able to provision desktops in the data center which provides the optimum experience for a particular line of business or geography. Increasingly, the larger enterprise customers are demanding a single pane of glass for consumption across countries and continents. Multi-data center support also allows for important capabilities like business continuity and disaster recovery - essential services for a complete desktop service offering.

DaaS automation engine
The last very exciting capability in this release is a complete automation engine based on our very rich set of APIs. This automation not only includes rapidly deploying the DaaS platform in additional data centers, but the deployment of full, secure tenant environments in minutes. Testing last week at one of the larger service providers showed the deployment of 8 full tenant environments with all of the virtual networks, management appliances, storage assignment, compute allocation and desktops in under 15 minutes. That is less than 2 minutes per tenant! Compare that to the historical challenge for the service provider to stand up a VDI implementation in less than 6 weeks! The DaaS Automation Engine also allows for full on-demand self-service desktop capacity by the client. No more phone calls or human interaction to elastically scale the business and grow from 20 to 20,000 cloud hosted virtual desktops. Speed, simplicity and scale are all automated for both service provider and tenant.

This platform release is the culmination of months of effort and years of experience. I am very proud of the Desktone development team and how they continue to lead innovation in the hosted desktop virtualization space. You want a multi-tenant easy-to-use platform for hosting desktops of any type on a global scale? Desktone makes it easy through a purpose built platform.

Read the full press release and tell us what you think!

CIOs Mobilizing Workforce With Desktop Virtualization

Thu, 19 Apr 2012 12:00:00 EDT

It's been awhile since we pulled together a recap of some great blog posts and articles about our industry, so it was tough to pick out our top five. Let us know what you think we should have included!

Here are some VDI, BYOD, and virtual desktop articles that we thought you might enjoy:

CIOs Mobilizing Workforce With Desktop Virtualization

"Corporate IT leaders that want to mobilize their workforce and buy fewer computers are turning to desktop virtualization, according to a CIO survey from Barclays Capital. The technology allows IT administrators to transmit software and data to a wide range of mobile devices, and allows CIOs to reduce the number of traditional laptops they purchase." - Clint Boulton, Wall Street Journal Read More...

BYOD vs Enterprise Security: Are they really at odds?

"The concept of bring-your-own-device (BYOD) has been a media darling since the launch of those handy little “iDevices”. And while many companies have certainly been toying with the concept, a large scale move to BYOD has not yet happened. But many of the pieces of the BYOD puzzle are now starting to come together and more and more businesses are considering it as something that may soon be a reality." - Chris Patterson, Navisite Read More...

Dell Delves into Desktop Virtualisation Market

"Dell has announced new desktop virtualisation products, looking to grow is already significant investment into the market. Today the company launched three new products, aiming to provide end-to-end solutions, whilst addressing the needs of businesses of any size." - Jennifer Scott, CloudPro Read More...

Research and Markets: Cloud-Based VDI Market in the UK 2011-2015

"TechNavio's report, the Cloud-based Virtual Desktop Infrastructure Market 2011-2015, has been prepared based on an in-depth analysis of the market with inputs from industry experts. The report focuses on the UK; it also covers the Cloud-based Virtual Desktop Infrastructure market landscape and its growth prospects in the coming years. The report also includes a discussion of the key vendors operating in this market." - Research and Markets Read More...

Will the Cloud Ride to VDI's Rescue?

"That's why hopes are riding high that the cloud will come to the rescue. By combining cloud-based virtualization and desktop as a service, the hope is that desktop images will become as fungible as everything else on the cloud, ushering in full virtualized desktop architectures without the steep upfront costs and operational complexity that traditional data center architectures require." - Arthur Cole, ITBusinessEdge Read More..

Welcome Netelligent! Introduces (DaaS) Powered by Desktone, Cisco and NetApp

Tue, 17 Apr 2012 12:00:00 EDT

Yesterday we announced that Netelligent has become the latest service provider to leverage the Desktone Desktop as a Service (DaaS) platform to deliver VDI as a service. Netelligent chose Desktone, Cisco and NetApp as the core stack for their offering. This is a great trio of technology to deliver high performing DaaS. We have partnered with NetApp and Cisco on many successful service provider solutions over the past 12 months. NetApp has a nice Desktone solution page if you want to find out more about our partnership.

Nettelligent didn't want to have to compromise and deliver session-based shared desktops for their customers. Their customers were looking for minimal disruption from the experience they were used to but wanted someone to host and manage the infrastructure for them. There is always a lot of debate whether a full desktop is needed versus a shared session desktop for DaaS. This is another good example of why full featured VDI as a service is required for many service providers. We agree that session-based shared desktops have a place in the market but in many cases customers want a full featured Windows 7 desktop.

This is another example of a service provider being able to deliver full featured Windows 7 VDI DaaS under current Microsoft licensing in a cost effective manner. There have been many debates surrounding this topic lately and again we would like to highlight that only under the Desktone virtual desktop platform this can be done. Rather than believe me you may want to look at recent announcements from Dell, NaviSite, Quest, Netelligent just over the past 3 months who are doing it.

The reality is with other VDI technologies it cannot be done. This is why 'they' would like to convince the market that it can't be done. Other VDI offerings were just not built for the cloud and are not multi-tenanted (and yes I know you can't share compute under MS licensing but you still get many cost and management efficincies - just ask us how). This is table stakes for cloud-delivery.

We are really impressed by Netelligent's expertise in the aaS market. They are a Gold level Cisco partner and it shows. They were up and running with a DaaS offering very quickly adding customers. Netelligent had many choices when it came to virtual desktop technologies, but after a thorough evaluation they recognized that only Desktone was built to deliver DaaS. We look forward to many successful deployments together - welcome to the club!

Desktone Partnership with Stratodesk

Wed, 11 Apr 2012 12:00:00 EDT

As everyone knows, there are two entities in every relationship. This is no different for the world of cloud hosted virtual desktops. There is the virtual desktop being hosted by the service provider, and there is the client that is connecting to the cloud desktop. Today, we're excited to announce a partnership with Stratodesk, who focuses on hardware agnostic thin client software. I like this partnership for four reasons:

1. We all know that the business world is emerging from an economic downturn where many organizations have held off on doing hardware refreshes for their desktops. This has left them with a significant number of outdated hardware end points. With Stratodesk, these machines can be easily re-purposed to access powerful, updated desktops running in the cloud environment. This lowers the total cost of ownership as people migrate to a newer model of desktop delivery.

2. The Stratodesk software is simple - and simple is beautiful. I turn on the PC/end point, enter my corporate credentials, and I am immediately connected with my cloud hosted virtual desktop. It does not get easier than this. The learning curve is eliminated. End users do not need to figure out how to change behavior for the LAN or WAN, install and manage protocol receivers, open this or that software, or deal with conflicts between the end point OS and the virtual desktop. The Stratodesk NoTouch desktop is its own operating system. Throw in that the Stratodesk software is lean and clean, and it makes for a compelling story.

3. Thirdly, the Stratodesk software includes an administrative center that allows the central IT team to easily audit and manage all the settings of the virtual desktop broker and protocol connection. It automatically creates an inventory of all the end points, and then allows full management and inheritance of all settings and updates.

4. Lastly, the team at Stratodesk and at Desktone share a similar view for the future of virtual desktops. There is a shared recognition of the reality of desktop transformation and a drive to both support and accelerate the migration towards a simpler and more cost effective desktop model. The partnership has been driven by 3 Es: make the desktop easy, economical and effective.

Interested in trying a cloud hosted virtual desktop? You can test one now in 30 seconds with Desktone, and you can leverage the Stratodesk NoTouch software for a simple and cost effective end point.

To learn more, join Desktone and Stratodesk for a live webinar on April 24th:
Extend the life of your PCs and Thin Clients by re-purposing and moving them to the cloud!
https://www3.gotomeeting.com/register/943891566

Dell Acquires Wyse: Desktop Virtualization Goes Mainstream

Mon, 02 Apr 2012 12:00:00 EDT

Yesterday, Dell announced they are acquiring Wyse. Wyse is the leader in thin client computing. For those of us in the desktop virtualization space this is music to our ears. With this acquisition the leader in end user computing has clearly validated the market opportunity and maturity of virtual desktop technology. Last week Dell validated the cloud-hosted desktops as a service (DaaS) market when they announced they had selected Desktone’s virtual desktop platform to deliver full-featured Desktops as a Service (DaaS).

I want to first congratulate my friends and colleagues over in the Dell Desktop Virtualization Solutions (DVS) group. I would also like to discuss what this acquisiton can mean to the virtual desktop market and in particular the cloud-hosted DaaS market. Dell is in a unique position to accelerate adoption of cloud-hosted desktops. Lets look at a couple of areas:

The virtual desktop ecosystem Dell now provides will provide enterprise customers with the confidence they need to move ahead.
Dell can tightly integrate and optimize the communication between the cloud desktop infrastructure and the end point providing a better end user experience.
Dell can control the server to the end point allowing for continuous monitoring of end user performance.
Clients want options. Many in the industry have been using the term ‘end of the PC’ but in reality there is no one-size-fits all and by offering a mix of thick clients, thin clients and mobile devices Dell can provide
Dell has the broadest Desktop Virtualization offerings with its Desktop Virtualization Solutions (DVS) portfolio letting customers chose between on premise VDI or cloud-hosted DaaS.
Dell can pre-configure Wyse thin clients to connect with their new Desktone powered DaaS offering making rollouts simple.
Dell could offer ‘cell phone plans’ that subsidize the thin client for customers willing to commit to DaaS monthly plans and thus reducing the total cost of ownership (TCO)
Dell now has many new sales people and channel partners that can reach new markets

If we weren’t already sufficiently excited about working with Dell we are definitely at a fever pitch for what this relationship can do for the broad adoption of DaaS. We look forward to helping Dell launch their new DaaS offering this quarter.

Dell Chooses Desktone to Deliver DaaS!

Fri, 30 Mar 2012 12:00:00 EDT

Today is a big day for Desktone. We’re thrilled to welcome our new partner Dell, who today announced they will leverage Desktone’s platform to offer Dell Desktop Virtualization Solutions (DVS) Simplified Desktops as a Service (DaaS). Dell’s selection of Desktone to offer a rapid turnkey virtual desktop solution is tangible affirmation that DaaS is the delivery mechanism of choice for desktop virtualization and that Desktone provides a unique desktop virtualization platform for delivering DaaS.

Combining Dell’s global data centers and end user computing expertise with Desktone’s flexible and scalable DaaS software platform was a no brainer for delivering quick and seamless deployment and management of virtual desktop environments. This offering is an expansion of Dell’s DVS portfolio, targeting customers who require fully-managed, fully-outsourced services from small- to medium-sized businesses to large enterprises looking for a virtual desktop solution with the ability to scale, self-serve and self-manage.

Why is this big news? First, it’s great for Dell. Having been the go-to trusted provider of desktops for decades, the company can now offer enterprises of all sizes an easy and affordable option for deploying virtual desktops. For Dell’s business customers, they can now deploy the DVS Simplified DaaS for easy virtual desktop provisioning and management, enabling them to concentrate on what really matters: their business. Secondly, the collaboration with Desktone makes it easy for Dell to offer complete virtual desktops in a truly scalable cloud environment. Businesses are able to start small and test the waters then scale as necessary once they’ve realized the benefits of desktop virtualization.

VP and GM of Dell’s mobility solutions group Steve Lalla offers, “We see an increasing number of customers turning to Dell as a trusted partner to help take the guess work out of developing virtual desktop architectures. With DVS simplified…we make it easy to deploy desktops virtualization solutions across the enterprise that fit diverse user needs.”

So why did Dell choose Desktone? Desktone offers the industry's only purpose built virtual desktop platform for service providers to deliver DaaS. By leveraging Desktone’s multi-tenanted cloud-hosted platform Dell is uniquely able to bring the benefits long ago promised, but undelivered, by VDI: scalability, stability, flexibility, predictable costs, reduced IT expenses, reduced management time and effort. As I said in the Dell release "This is the revolutionary step in cost and scale that the industry has needed in order to accelerate the adoption of virtual desktops.”

We look forward to working with Dell to deliver the industry's highest performing DaaS offering. Stay tuned in the coming weeks for complete details on the new offering.

Microsoft Acknowledges the demand for Cloud Hosted Desktops

Thu, 08 Mar 2012 12:00:00 EST

I know that many of you have been following the ongoing saga of licensing for the OnLive Desktop offering. It certainly appeared that they were breaking the rules with Microsoft licensing, and there have been a lot of market feedback from industry analysts and others that questioned if the approach was a secret agreement or a compliance issue. It was very confusing and frustrating to us here at Desktone because we have been offering full Windows 7 desktops as a service to customers for 5 years now, and doing so in a compliant manner with the VDA license.

Today, Microsoft officially commented on the matter:

http://blogs.technet.com/b/volume-licensing/archive/2012/03/08/delivery-of-desktop-like-functionality-through-outsourcer-arrangements-and-service-provider-license-agreements.aspx

Some inquiries about these scenarios have been raised as a result of recent media coverage related to OnLive’s Desktop and Desktop Plus services. Additionally, the analyst firm Gartner raised questions regarding the compliance of these services last week. We are actively engaged with OnLive with the hope of bringing them into a properly licensed scenario, and we are committed to seeing this issue is resolved.

Seeing an official response from Microsoft is great! Firstly, it is an acknowledgement of an exploding market with incredible demands. Secondly, it is a great validation to know that we are the only cloud hosted desktop offering to provide a platform that enables a multi-tenant cloud hosted desktop platform for a service provider in a compliant manner. It is being used today with many service providers to offer a very successful Desktop as a Service offering. We have invested a significant amount of intellectual property and resources into a very unique and highly differentiated platform that meets a very real and growing market demand. Multi-tenancy is not just about compute, it is also management, provisioning, storage, networking and enterprise integration. Desktone provides that platform!

Two wishes? I wish a) that Microsoft does enable a SPLA licensed Windows 7 desktop and that b) they allow shared hardware in the service provider platform. While our platform enables a shared compute resource today for Linux and Windows server based desktops, we can not fully leverage this for the number one client desktop in the market - Windows 7. Should Microsoft recognize the incredible demand and market opportunity for even more growth in the cloud desktop market, we'll be ready!

Welcome NaviSite! Another Top Service Provider Chooses Desktone for DaaS

Mon, 27 Feb 2012 12:00:00 EST

This morning NaviSite announced a new DaaS offering built on the Desktone platform. I am very happy to welcome NaviSite to the Desktone partner family. As a leading cloud infrastructure services company they will be able to deliver high performing virtual desktops to customers around the globe.

NaviSite has further extended the Desktone DaaS network to another 3 global data centers. In the desktop virtualization market data center proximity to the end user is very important for the performance of the desktop. This is one of the benefits of going with a DaaS model versus an enterprise virtual desktop deployment. Most organizations cannot afford to build virtual desktop infrastructure (VDI) data centers close to all employees. Instead, they try to service all employees from one location. This is ok if your employees are geographically close, but imagine trying to service your UK office from a datacenter in California. NaviSite's DaaS offering enables you to provide high performing virtual desktops to employees regardless of their location.

They are also offering enterprise-class DaaS alongside their Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) offerings. Most organizations are looking to outsource as much IT to the cloud as possible transforming capital expenses (CAPEX) to operating expenses (OPEX).

Lastly, this is further validation of Desktone's unique position in the virtual desktop marketplace. We are the only desktop virtualization vendor build from day 1 for service providers to deliver DaaS. When conducting research in this market NaviSite looked at traditional Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI) vendors and, like our other partners, quickly realized that these solutions were not built for a cloud-based service delivery. Traditional VDI solutions were built for individual onsite enterprise deployments.

So, what did NaviSite see that was so unique? It would take me hours to explain all the features Desktone has built for service providers but the big ones are: multi-tenancy, scale, security and role separation. It is extremely difficult to deliver DaaS if you do not have multi-tenancy. It's true, due to Microsoft licensing, that you can't yet leverage multi-tenancy across hardware but you can across the management layer which, for service providers, is extremely important and significantly reduces the cost of delivery. Service providers like NaviSite don't want to stand up siloed infrastructures for every customer. Scalability is also very important and due to our architecture this is virtually unlimited while other vendors require new installations to scale. Again, I could go on all day but we prefer to let our customers do the talking and the fact that another leading cloud services company has chosen Desktone for hosted virtual desktops does a lot of talking.

We look forward to working with NaviSite to deliver the industry's highest performing DaaS offering.