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3 Questions for MokaFive Founder John Whaley
Desktop virtualization is far from a new topic, in fact it dates back to the inception of the client-server model. But there are still virtualization startups out there, among them Redwood City, Calif.-based MokaFive, which is gunning for a chance to go up against Microsoft, IBM and Citrix with its own desktop-in-the-cloud model, which debuts on Tuesday.
I chatted with MokaFive founder and CTO John Whaley about what makes MokaFive’s model different from that of its competitors, and how reliable a desktop-in-the-cloud might be.
GigaOM: How is the MokaFive desktop different and why did you guys go with a cloud computing storage model?
John Whaley: Running a desktop off of a server is expensive and you have to be connected to the server. You can generally fit only a certain number of desktops on a server and the servers processing all the information can run really slow. So we chose a client running on a computer carried via a USB drive.
Another benefit to running a desktop off a client is we have this feature that keeps all of the data separate from the OS and the applications. So if you ever mess up the system with malware, viruses, etc., you just shut down and restart with a pristine OS and applications.
GO: Are customers concerned about reliability of the Amazon infrastructure and the idea of storing their desktop in the cloud rather than on dedicated hardware?
Whaley: We have over 60 customers and they can host the data themselves or we use Amazon S3 to host only the bits for each user. We don’t store the code with Amazon. If a user isn’t connected to the Internet for some reason the data is stored on the travel drive and syncs back up to the cloud when the user is online again.
GO: What is your and backer Vinod Khosla’s vision for the future of computing that led to the founding and funding of MokaFive?
Whaley: Your computer is living in the cloud and you can access it from anywhere — from a desktop, a laptop or a cell phone. That means your desktop can be maintained by someone else for you. From the IT administrator’s point of view his job is easier and for you it’s like a new machine in the cloud that keeps working and is constantly refreshed without the problems of spyware and virus attacks. I think this will be common in 3-4 years.
Stacey here: For those curious and willing to try the MokaFive concept, the company has a section of its site devoted to publicly shared virtual environments for testing. One that looks particularly interesting is its Fearless Browser download, which allows you to create an anonymous browsing environment on your PC. Given the lack of privacy on the web, this may come in handy.
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GigaNET: Tesla, Khosla, Web Worker’08 Contest
- WebWorkerDaily: Our first WWD contest. Answer the question - What role will the web worker play in global economy in 2008 - and win a keyboard-mouse set.
- Earth2Tech: Tesla Musical Chairs: Who’s In, Who’s Out. What its all about.
- Earth2tech: Vinod Khosla, caught on tape saying, “We can replace oil in 20 years or less.”
- NewTeeVee: KateModern, a web video success story? Seems like it.
- FoundRead: What’s better? To Ask First or Apologize Later?
Telecom Investors Seeing Green
Telecom investors are seeing green. First we had telecom uber investor Vinod Khosla with his burgeoning clean tech portfolio. Then father of the Ethernet, Bob Metcalfe joined the party. Now we have FON founder Martin Varvasky getting interested in Solar farms. I guess with telecom operators deciding the fate of all telecom-related start-ups, the risks in green tech seem to be more acceptable.
“People may resent the Internet people wandering into the energy space and constantly saying that we don’t know anything,” Metcalfe told Earth2Tech in a recent interview. “I’d say to that that you guys have had a long time to fix it, so now get out of the way.”
PS: Please let me know if you know of more ex-telecom types going green … for future reference, of course!
Can Xobni cure Outlook’s ills?
Vinod Khosla, one of the co-founders of Sun Microsystems and formerly of Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, has made a fortune out of betting on companies that tackle really big problems. Some of his bets – Juniper Networks, for instance – have paid off handsomely. Others have been marginally successful, at least from a financial standpoint.
He continues the tradition with his new venture fund, Khosla Ventures, investing in clean tech and alternative energy start-ups. He is taking a similar approach to his InfoTech investments as well. Khosla, like most of us, believes that email is a big problem and fixing it is a big opportunity. That perhaps explains his bet on Adam Smith and Matt Brezina, co-founders of Xobni, a San Francisco-based company that has come out of the YCombinator program.
According to Alarm: Clock, the company has raised $1.5 million of a $4.26 million Series A round, led by Khosla Ventures. Other investors in the company are Rony Conway and FirstRound Capital. The company proposes to build add-ons to the popular Microsoft Outlook email software, and add a level of analytics to the ever-growing email inboxes.
Our email inboxes continue to spiral out of control, beginning to resemble New York City when the garbage workers are on strike. Google Desktop Search, Microsoft’s own Lookout, and X-1 can help us find some of the emails buried in our inboxes, but it’s a long and tedious process on a lucky day.
Xobni, wants to solve all these problems, and indeed has lofty goals, as outlined on their website. One would indeed believe the two young co-founders if there was a product that we could test out. We ran into Brezina at the Start-Up School this weekend, and asked him for further details and presumably we will get those when the beta is made available.
For now, there is no definitive time line when the beta is going to be released, and as a result we are going to reserve our final judgment, erring on the side of skepticism about company’s claims. And that is despite being aware that it is unwise to bet against Khosla’s instincts.
Is Vodafone’s Starfish really iSkoot?
At CeBit tradeshow in Hanover, Germany, Vodafone, world largest mobile carrier (not including China) showed off a new mobile VoIP client, code named Starfish, that allows people to call their Internet chat buddies including those on the Skype service. It supports MSN, AOL and Yahoo as well.
A similar service has been launched by the 3G wireless carrier, “3″ in UK. The “3″ service is being powered by iSkoot. In previous conversations with iSkoot management we had learnt that they were planning to support all IM services (including Skype.) Vodafone’s Starfish looks like a custom version of iSkoot.
We posed this question to Jacob Gudedalia, CEO of iSkoot, but he declined to comment on the news. The Boston-based company that is backed by Vinod Khosla’s Khosla Ventures has been in talks with other mobile carriers for its mobile-VoIP-chat-IM service. It wouldn’t come as a surprise if Starfish is really iSkoot.
“We have not yet decided if we will launch it, or the commercial terms and prices,” Jan Holzberg, the manager for the product at Vodafone Group, said on Thursday.