Infrastructure Optimization Featured Article

If you agree that the Web has "evolved far beyond browser capabilities, limiting the usability and practicality of cloud storage and cloud services," and this reporter does, you might be interested in Gladinet, whose officials describe the company's goal as to "transform the Internet into a virtual PC by integrating cloud services directly onto a PC desktop."

Gladinet offers open-platform integration with EMC (News - Alert) Atmos, Google Docs, Amazon S3 and other providers. Gladinet's flagship product is Cloud Desktop, which provides "an Internet-based virtual disk drive," company officials say, adding that it also allows for cross-storage backup among such providers, and for "using these providers as a redundant array of cloud storage."

"Previously, each cloud storage provider has required a different interface tailored to that particular brand, and this has been highly inconvenient for users," says Jerry Huang, co-owner of Gladinet. "Gladinet's Cloud Desktop is truly revolutionary because, as a ubiquitous cloud storage client, it provides the same features and interface to many cloud storage providers. Plus, the virtual drives, which are then located on your desktop, allow for backups to a redundant array of cloud storage, eliminating the need to rely upon one provider for backup."

In April TMC had the news of another firm working the virtual PC space, as NComputing announced a product to "turn one PC into many with its latest X series technology, which straddles the line between thin client and remote virtual desktop products."

Businesses of all sizes are looking to squeeze the most value out of the typical desktop PC, as NComputing officials said, "but the question remains, how low can you go? While some businesses may choose to go as low-end as possible to shave a few bucks off a PC, NComputing is offering a different way to maximize value. The company has launched its latest in PC-sharing technology, the X series, which allows many users to share a PC, for as little as $70 per seat."

The product works by creating virtual PCs on the host system and then delivering those virtual PC sessions down to users via the access devices. "While the concept of accessing a virtual PC is not new, NComputing takes it one step further by replacing the client PC with an inexpensive access device," company officials said at the time.