SUNNYVALE, Calif., Sept. 24 /PRNewswire/ -- Qumranet, a leading provider of virtual computing solutions, announced today the official launch of the company and its first commercial product, Solid ICE, the industry's only fully integrated desktop virtualization solution. After being in stealth mode for approximately two years, the company today unveiled the first in a suite of integrated virtualization products at DEMOfall 07, the premier launch venue for new products, technologies and companies.

Solid ICE enables enterprises to host desktops in KVM virtual machines on servers in the corporate data center, and allows users to connect to them via a remote protocol called SPICE. The benefits for IT include centralized provisioning, management, policy enforcement and compliance for desktops. In addition, due to the KVM and SPICE combination, Solid ICE delivers a superior end-user experience, especially with respect to graphics and multimedia.

Unlike existing offerings on the market today that are retrofitted server virtualization products, Solid ICE has been designed from the ground up to host and manage thousands of virtual desktops. In Solid ICE, entire Windows and Linux desktop environments are hosted centrally and administered from a single control point. Leveraging the Open-Source KVM (Kernel-based Virtual Machine) hypervisor for Solid ICE, Qumranet has developed a superior desktop virtualization solution that delivers greater organizational computing productivity and improves both data center operations and the end-user access experience.

"Virtualization is changing the way we interact with computing resources. We have only seen the tip of the iceberg in terms of applications for virtualization," said Benny Schnaider, Qumranet's CEO and co-founder. "Qumranet's new desktop virtualization solution, Solid ICE, is taking computing to the next level by separating the user environment from the underlying hardware. This separation creates a wide variety of very attractive use cases and solves many of today's desktop provisioning and management problems."

The Market Opportunity: Desktop Virtualization Could Save Billions Spent Annually on Desktop Provisioning & Management

With an estimated 500 million business PCs installed globally, and less than five million running virtualization software in 2007, the market opportunity for desktop virtualization is immense. With the average annual TCO per desktop coming in at approximately $4,000, there are literally billions of dollars spent annually to keep existing desktop environments operational. Adoption of desktop virtualization solutions is being driven by the need for a more flexible, independent and secure computing environment that holds the potential to substantially reduce this costly TCO equation. Unlike existing server virtualization products, Solid ICE is designed and optimized for virtual desktops. Solid ICE allows Windows and Linux desktops to be centrally-hosted as Independent Computing Environments (ICE). According to Ami Shlesinger, director of IT at the Commercial Aircraft Division of Israel Aerospace Industries (IAI), "Solid ICE has the potential to revolutionize the way IAI provisions and manages our desktop and server computing environment without sacrificing on performance or user experience."

Solid ICE: Delivering IT Control and Enhanced End-User Experience

Solid ICE is the only fully-integrated desktop virtualization solution in the market today built specifically for virtualizing desktop environments, and therefore, provides all the benefits of centralized computing with the interactivity and rich user experience of desktop computing. With Solid ICE, the user's desktop runs in a KVM virtual machine on a server in the data center, and the user connects to it using a thin client (or a repurposed PC) via SPICE (Simple Protocol for Independent Computing Environments), Qumranet's connection protocol. SPICE is optimized for virtual desktop environments and provides users with a superior interactive experience.

Specific benefits for IT include: -- Fully-integrated, "out-of-the-box" desktop virtualization solution -- Centralized management, storage and policy enforcement for desktops -- Instant provisioning of new desktops -- Significant reduction of desk-side visits -- Near-zero downtime in the event of server failures -- Significant reduction in the cost of new application deployment -- Robust desktop image management capabilities -- Normal 2-3 year PC refresh cycle extended to 5-6 years or more -- Energy consumption costs reduced dramatically Specific benefits for the end user include: -- Existing desktop-like performance including video, audio etc. -- Ability to access the users' enterprise desktop environment from any device -- Desktop computing power on demand -- Multiple desktops on demand -- Self provisioning of desktops (controlled by policies) -- Zero downtime in the event of client failure

Enterprises including Israel Aerospace Industries (IAI), a leader in the global aerospace market, and Virtela, a global network solutions company, are selecting Solid ICE for a number of applications and use cases including:

-- Outsourcing -- maintain intellectual property and data security within a corporate facility -- Developer desktops -- enable developers to self-provision multiple machines, snapshot and revert to virtual desktops, and access Linux or Windows applications as required -- IT training rooms -- eliminate re-provisioning time and provide "clean machines" to trainees -- Legacy Windows 2000 support -- eliminate stocking older hardware that supports Windows 2000; users are given a Windows 2000 virtual desktop, and they can connect to it from any PC or thin client using SPICE -- IT support desktop -- support IT personnel with multiple virtual desktops for increased productivity Industry Support for Qumranet and Solid ICE

"Qumranet is an innovative virtualization start-up company. Its Solid ICE product is a differentiated virtualization platform that can cohesively host and deliver virtual desktops, and has been designed with a quality user experience at front of mind." -- Michael Rose, associate research analyst, IDC

"If an organization is seeking a computing environment that is movable, consistent, reliable and secure that will support a range of different usage cases, these organizations would be well advised to learn more about Qumranet and Solid ICE." -- Dan Kusnetzky, principal analyst, The Kusnetzky Group

"Desktop virtualization -- following in the footsteps of the quickly-expanding server virtualization market -- is gaining a higher profile among enterprise customers for its potential management, security and cost benefits. Solutions that rely on a Linux-based hypervisor also benefit from the continuous input and improvement generated through the open source process. Qumranet's Solid ICE is designed to corral these benefits into a central solution for hosted virtualized environments." -- John Madden, research director, Ovum Summit

"Our plan for client virtualization is somewhat different than server virtualization. Qumranet is leveraging its KVM and Solid ICE technologies to build a fully-integrated environment targeted specifically for client and desktop virtualization. We are convinced that Qumranet's Solid ICE technology will improve our client application response times and lower Virtela's internal management costs related to branch office consolidation in the very near future." -- Mark Hansard, vice president, Security and IT Systems, Virtela

Availability

The product is expected to be generally available later this year. Additional information about the Qumranet Solid ICE Early Adopter Program is available on http://www.qumranet.com/.

About Qumranet

Based in Sunnyvale, CA and Netanya, Israel, Qumranet is an enterprise software company offering a virtual infrastructure platform to enable Independent ComputingTM. Organizations use Qumranet's first product, Solid ICETM, to host Windows and Linux desktops centrally on servers in the data center, creating what Qumranet calls an Independent Computing EnvironmentTM (ICETM) for users. This enables centralized provisioning, management, storage and policy enforcement for desktop environments, and at the same time, provides a superior end-user experience. Qumranet is also the creator, maintainer and global sponsor of the KVM Open Source Hypervisor Project.

Qumranet, Solid ICE, Independent Computing, ICE, and SPICE are trademarks of Qumranet. All other trademarks referenced herein are the property of their respective owners.

CONTACT: Susan Wise of Greenough Communications, +1-617-275-6550,
swise@greenoughcom.com, for Qumranet

Web site: http://www.qumranet.com/

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