Combine the iPhone with virtualization software, and you have a marketing dream – a notion not lost on start-up MokaFive.
On Monday, MokaFive began offering early access to its iPhone Sentinel software, which lets people grab their entire Windows desktop and dump it on an iPhone. All of your files, settings and software are turned into a single package that can be stored on an iPhone and restarted on a regular computer. Sentinel makes sure that all the virtual desktop files stay synchronized as you move between various machines.
The technology is similar to software which makes it possible to store a full operating system and applications on a memory stick and just run the software from that device. In this, the iPhone functions as a memory stick and MokaFive offers up the sophisticated synchronization tools along with other software that speeds up the virtual desktop when it’s running on a computer.
“The key part is that people want to be able to access anything everywhere,” said T.J. Purtell, a MokaFive engineer who helpe develop the software. “You put everything you need on your iPhone and carry it with you.”
Such software may appeal to a limited set of digital nomads who want just about every file they’ve ever created with them at all times. The average user, however, may find a to-go desktop more of a chore than anything else.
MokaFive is yet another virtualization start-up to emerge from Stanford University. It follows virtualization-software market leader VMware, which has established itself as the dominant server-virtualization player.
The start-up appeared on the scene in April, offering a new way to create collections of software. MokaFive helps customers build what it calls LivePCs, which are portable software packages. You could create a LivePC with Windows XP, Office, Internet Explorer and iTunes or create one with just a single game such as Quake. In addition, you can use the LivePC to run, say, Linux or Mac OS X on top of a Windows computer.
The ability to create LivePCs isn’t actually all that unique, but MokaFive does present some fresh technology. It can update LivePCs, installing security patches or new features, over the network. Such technology would permit a company, for example, to freshen up workers’ computers from afar and to control remotely which software certain workers can access.
For the moment, the iPhone Sentinel has less flexibility than most of MokaFive’s software. The test version of the code only runs with Windows XP, and you need to have iTunes installed on the synchronized computers. The company hopes to have a more sophisticated, final version of the software ready “early next year,” Mr. Purtell said.
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