Release: MokaFive Virtual Desktop Solution 1.0

The timeless development of MokaFive Player 1.0 (formerly LivePC) has finally come to an end: today MokaFive (formerly Moka5) launches the RTM version of its product.

Before reaching this point the company worked exactly three years (one in stealth mode), changed several executives (including the CEO), changed the company and the product name, and re-focused its go-to-market strategy.

The result of this almost complete transformation is a wrapper for desktop virtualization products (VMware Player is the only one currently supported) which is available in two editions: MokaFive Professional and MokaFive Express, grouped by the name Virtual Desktop Solution.

While the former offers enterprise features and it’s available by an annual subscription, the latter targets the consumer market and it’s free of charge.

The common engine can be considered as a VMware Player enhancer, offering additional features like:

  • the capability to create and receive virtual machine updates from an online location (the MokaFive Lab website only for the Express edition)
  • the capability to run a virtual machine before it’s completely downloaded (through a caching technology called Predictive Fetch)
  • the capability to use the snapshots to revert the virtual machine to a clean state without losing user’s data
  • the capability to run from a USB device (like a key or an iPod)

On top of this, the new MokaFive professional introduces additional features which allow to centrally control several virtual machines, sign and encrypt their virtual hard drives, and define an expiration time.

These last capabilities put MokaFive in competition with other virtualization wrappers exclusively focused on security like Sentillion vThere, VMware ACE and Microsoft/Kidaro Workspaces.
Potential customers may wonder why they should buy a product which uses a VMware platform (Player) to offer some features that VMware offers by itself with another product (ACE, and soon Workstation), so it’s likely that MokaFive will embrace other virtualization platforms sooner or later. Since Parallels Desktop is already adopted by Sentillion, Sun VirtualBox may be a good candidate.

MokaFive may do something with several other virtualization products in the near future, considering the impressive connections it has today: Frank Artale (Vice President at Citrix) Dale Fuller (Chairman at Phoenix) and Urs Hölzle (Senior Vice President of Operations at Google) all sit in the advisory board.
Additionally, the company received a $15 million funding from Highland Capital Partner, where sits Shaw Chuang, the former VMware Director of R&D.
Last but not least Intel just added MokaFive to its Software Partner Program.

The products are available for both Windows and Mac OS. Download the Express edition free of charge here.

The virtualization.info Virtualization Industry Roadmap has been updated accordingly.