REDMOND, Wash.--You've heard of BYOB, now get ready for Bring Your Own Laptop.
There's a small but growing trend in which companies are choosing to give employees money toward their personal laptop, rather than providing a company-issued portable. British Petroleum is among the companies that is trying the approach.
One of the technologies that is making that possible is desktop virtualization, which allows companies to put their software or even an entire corporate image onto the device without having to worry about the fact that it doesn't control the entire laptop. Basically, the corporate stuff can run in a sandbox, with personal data and programs running alongside--but not intermingling with--the business processes.
For the company, such personally owned laptops can save on support costs and serve as a retention tools for Generation Y-ers, said Lee Nicholls, global solutions director for IT consultant Getronics.
"They have a really high expectation of what they want to work with," Nicholls said. "They want a degree of flexibility."
To make that approach more workable, Microsoft has scooped up a company called Kidaro that allows software running in a virtual machine to run alongside ones running from the main operating system. The deal to buy Kidaro was announced in March and Microsoft said Thursday that the deal has closed. However, Microsoft won't start selling the product itself until sometime in the first half of next year.
Microsoft's Shanen Boettcher said that type of virtualization approach is still a very niche concept. The use of any type of desktop virtualization is still small, he said, but over time its use will grow and Kidaro will help in making an experience that is more palatable to individuals.
"It's early on," said Boettcher, a general manager in Microsoft's Windows unit. "Less than 1 percent of desktops run some virtualization today."
Updated at 10:30 a.m. PDT with comments and further details from Microsoft.
In its latest move into virtualization, Microsoft said on Wednesday that it has bought Kidaro, a company that helps businesses manage their collection of virtual machines.
Microsoft said the technology will make it easier for businesses to manage application compatibility challenges, ultimately spurring faster Vista adoption as well as broadening the use of virtual machines within corporations.
"The challenge we have with Virtual PC today is it doesn't have enterprise-level management and deployment with it and the user experience could be improved," said Gavriella Schuster, a senior director in Microsoft's Windows unit. Schuster said that Kidaro's technology helps on both scores. In addition to tools for setting up and managing virtual machines, Kidaro has technology that makes virtual machines less jarring for users, making them appear to be part of the standard desktop. (Parallels has a similar feature in its Windows-on-Mac virtualization product)
Schuster declined to give financial details on the deal for the privately held firm, which has 35 employees, with its development based in Israel. Schuster said Kidaro's three founders are remaining with Microsoft and will continue to lead the product's development in Israel.
Kidaro's technology will be added to a future version of the company's awkwardly named Microsoft Desktop Optimization Pack. The collection of tools is sold as an add-on to Microsoft's Software Assurance program for volume license customers. Other things in the collection include an application virtualization technology known as SoftGrid and asset management tools that stem from Microsoft's AssetMetrix acquisition.
Microsoft announced the Desktop Optimization Pack in October 2006 as an add-on to its subscription Software Assurance program.
Schuster said that Microsoft won't know exactly how long it will take to add in Kidaro's product to MDOP until it has a look at the code. "We hope that it's certainly less than a year," she said, adding that Microsoft aims to have a more concrete time frame by its Management Summit next month.
While perhaps not a mainstream way for businesses to move to Vista, Schuster said Microsoft thinks some companies will find it more palatable with Kidaro's tools to run older, Vista incompatible applications via a Windows XP virtual machine.
"We do see that as a pretty significant option for a lot of our customers," she said.
- prev
- 1
- next
