Analysis by Tim Negris

MokaFive is slumming. Like Citrix, VMware and countless other vendors, they call themselves a “desktop virtualization” vendor, but they ain’t.

Since 1959 the computing world has generally used the word virtual as a rough synonym for simulated as in “virtual disk in RAM,” or “virtual memory on disk,” or “virtual machine” in VMware, for that matter. Consistent with this usage is the latest virtual thingie, the virtual desktop, but among the solutions sporting this label, MokaFive is the thing that’s not like the others.

There are at least five different flavors of desktop virtualization (see http://tinyurl.com/CIO-5-Flavors). Three are some variant of the “thin client,” where a scaled-down desktop device supporting the user’s screen, keyboard and mouse is persistently connected to a server computer where the desktop applications actually run. Of the remaining two, one is the Java “sandbox” scheme, where a downloaded or locally installed application on the PC runs in a subordinate, controlled partition, largely independent of whatever else is on the system. The other is where a desktop-based hypervisor manages one or more virtual machines in which the applications run, like the way one runs Windows apps on a Mac.

MokaFive’s offering is none of the above, and, for most IT purposes, it’s probably better than all of the above. Backed by 10 years of R&D at Stanford and the NSF and over 20 patents, MokaFive is a new new thing. It’s a portable PC stack – OS, drivers, applications and data – that’s forged and versioned on a server, compressed, and then downloaded to a PC, Mac or smart phone. Once instantiated on the user’s device, it can operate completely independently of, or in conjunction with the server; it can be dynamically updated or killed on that PC by the server; its data can be synchronized with that on the server; and it can be easily moved or cloned from one device to another by the server. And, according to the company, it does all this very, very quickly. Here’s how the company divvies up its benefits.

Choice Computing

MokaFive enables what the company calls “BYOC,” where the ‘C’ stands for computer. This is where the user can use a device of choice to run corporate applications, with no need for IT to provision or configure the target device. This means that a company can create a complete, authorized desktop image and temporarily “loan” it to a guest worker for use on his or her system and remove it when the job is done, or it can enable telecommuters to use their own hardware to run company software. BYOC means a potentially enormous reduction in hardware cost for many IT organizations.

Mobility

You’ve heard about GoToMyPC and the like. How about “Bring me my PC”? With MokaFive, users can clone, move or remotely access their corporate desktops on any device, without having to worry about security, backup, customization or reconfiguration.

Disaster Recover

In the MokaFive scheme, the server maintains a master copy of every user’s PC image. If the user’s device is damaged, lost or stolen, the server can rapidly kill the system image and destroy the data on the device, preserving license and data security, and re-instantiate it on a replacement user system through the network or by a USB key. If the network gets whacked by a hurricane, users can keep on truckin’ until it comes back up. If a server gets fried, the user devices get re-synched to a backup server.

Outsourcing

For most companies, moving the help desk to Hyderabad or diagnosticians to Delhi usually means a lengthy, complex implementation process, hardware budget and standards squabbles, and ongoing work and worry to manage software and protect data across organizations. MokaFive aims to change the face of outsourcing by eliminating these concerns. The contractors buy and install their desktop PCs of choice, download the authorized desktop images, including OS, apps and data, and get to work. Back at HQ, IT retains control of data and communications security and keeps everybody’s desktop software completely up-to-date and all their data safely backed up.

That’s quite a menu and it’s hard to find any other vendor offering comparable fare. And, given MokaFive’s savvy management and considerable intellectual capital, that’s likely to remain true for a while. But, to break away from the noisy pack in which it is currently running, it probably needs to do something about its positioning in the marketplace. It does itself a disservice by calling what it does “desktop virtualization.” It’s “me too” and not even correct. And then it pokes itself in the other eye by swinging the synonymous stick of “Desktop-as-a-Service.” Again, it’s not accurate and, with no disrespect intended to the MokaFive marketing folks, the world need another “aaS” like I need another “ass.”

If MokaFive can muster the marketing mastery to match its apparent product prowess, it can go from being best-in-class to being in a class by itself.