The number of firms entering the application virtualization market these days is impressive. Just few hours ago virtualization.info included Ceedo in its Virtualization Industry Radar. Now we move on Xenocode.
The company was founded in 2002 but so far it primarily focused on .NET code obfuscation with a product called Postbuild.
Such product was already able to virtualize the managed code for an easier deployment so was easier for the company to target a wider audience.
Now Xenocode extended its virtualization capabilities to any application, Windows binary or .NET/Java code, offered in a packaging solution called Virtual Application Studio.
Like many competitors this product offers a fully virtualized environment which abstracts the file system, the registry, the processes and threads.
After the packaging Virtual Application Studio is able to generate virtual executables which don’t require administrative privileges to run or .MSI installers.
The overhead per application is around 400Kb.
Xenocode virtual applications don’t require any agent installed on clients to be deployed and don’t have any other complex requirement like an Active Directory infrastructure.
It’s also possible to run the applications from a USB key or to stream them from a network share (it’s not clear if this last feature require any 3rd party streaming capability).
Xenocode doesn’t provide any enterprise management feature that many competitor decided to offer.
The company prefers to rely on 3rd party management products like Microsoft System Center Configuration Manager (SCCM), Novell ZENWorks or CA Unicenter to distribute its packages.
Virtual Application Studio uses a per-user licensing model. The pricing for the application and 5 licenses (which the company calls a Starter Kit) is $499. Each additional license costs $40.
Download a trial here.
Xenocode has been included in the virtualization.info Virtualization Industry Radar.
The Virtualization Industry Roadmap has been updated accordingly.