Rick Faulk, who we announced yesterday has joined our Board of Directors, sent us a pointer to a very interesting article in the November issue of Fast Company magazine.  It included some data points that I found a bit staggering:

• A laptop is stolen every 53 seconds.
• More than 12,000 laptops disappear each week from U.S. airports alone.
• Only 3% of laptops are ever returned.

The article went on to describe some of the technologies out there for tracking and recovering stolen laptops as they come up on a network somewhere “in the wild.”  This is innovate technology, and it seems like it is getting some very positive results.  However, in my view, it is only a partial solution.  With NxTop, we provide a similar ability to remotely “kill” a laptop and wipe away its data.  This throws up some pretty big obstacles to the run of the mill thief.  However, a criminal can counteract this through a variety of methods ranging in sophistication from simply not connecting the laptop to a network to pulling the hard drive out and accessing the data through other means.

For most companies, the monetary loss of the laptop itself is nearly meaningless.  The two bigger concerns are security of sensitive data and lost productivity of employees due to missing data and time spent without a functioning PC.  So, in addition to remote kill, we have layered additional measures such as:

• Trusted boot to protect against tampering with our virtualization layer.
• Encryption by default for all data on the laptop.
• Policy-based controls governing how often the laptop needs to “phone home.”  (For example, if the laptop does not check in at least every X days, it becomes inaccessible.)
• Transparent backup of user data to the central server.
• Hardware abstraction that presents a common set of “virtual hardware” to Windows regardless of the underlying PC hardware.

None of these things is a silver bullet by itself.  However, if a NxTop-enabled laptop is ever lost or stolen, the company has assurance that they have multiple measures working in concert to make it a non-event.  For example, even if someone was going to take a run at cracking encryption, the ticking clock of the “phone home” policy dramatically shortens the window they have to do so.  Additionally, the combination of hardware abstraction and user data backup allows IT to just pull a new PC off the shelf (even using an HP to replace a Lenovo or vice versa) and restore to a complete user-customized PC in minutes.

A government laptop containing personal information was stolen in North Carolina. The laptop contained personal information of people receiving services from the North Carolina Division of Aging and  Adult Services. Here’s the story.

While the data on the laptop was password protected, there is no guarantee that the personal information stored on the computer can’t be accessed. Now, there’s hassle and expense all around:

• North Carolina must contact all of the potentially affected people
• These people are asked to place a fraud alert on their credit report and to regularly monitor their credit report
• Additional people were notified to be alert (presumably, contact information was on this laptop but not social security numbers)
• The end user needs a new laptop and hopes their data is backed up (not just the consumer data but anything they’ve had on the laptop)

As you can see, this is a real problem for many people and, rightfully, there is real concern. In a situation like this, you hope it’s just the hardware that will be used by the laptop thief and not the data on it.

This scenario is one we are solving with NxTop. We realize that laptops will be stolen and that dealing with the follow-up in any situation is a pain. In most cases, it is the data on the stolen laptop that causes problems and not the hardware itself.

The solution we’ve come up with combines use of disk encryption and data leakage protection with the ability to remotely “kill” the PC from NxTop Center with a few mouse clicks.  Plus, all of the user’s data, applications, and settings are seamlessly backed up on the central server.  Simply register a new PC with NxTop Center—even a completely different laptop from a different vendor—and within minutes the user is restored to their personalized environment.  I don’t mean a base Windows image with collection of files from a backup server.  This is their desktop environment, right down to the settings and the wallpaper picture of their cat.

For more information, see this post: How Do You Deal With A Stolen Laptop? and this web page: Laptop Management and Mobile User Management

Stolen laptops are a real problem. Whichever statistics you choose to believe, the numbers are staggering and growing every year. Granted, this is no great surprise since laptop use is growing every year (side note: I haven’t seen anything but it would be interesting to compare the growth of laptop use with the growth of laptop theft).

With today’s solutions, a stolen laptop causes many problems and headaches:

• Confidential data may be lost
• User isn’t able to work until new hardware can be provisioned
• In a best case scenario, there is a recent backup of user data that can be restored to a new machine
• Employee wastes time re-customizing machine to their liking
• IT needs to build the laptop…best case, this involves an updated image
• Employee hunts down license keys for user-specific programs, wasting more time
• Depending on data on laptop, may need to communicate loss to customers which can be costly and embarrassing

What if there were a better way? What if you could simply “turn off” the laptop remotely?

This isn’t a problem with NxTop.

NxTop’s architecture separates the four main components that make up a PC: the hardware, operating systems, data and applications. This presents a very unique way of dealing with laptop theft: since all four components are separate, you can simply stop a piece of hardware (a stolen laptop) from accessing the other four components. Without that access, the stolen laptop is no longer a real problem.

As for the user, simply get them a new piece of hardware and provision a new NxTop to them. A few mouse clicks is all it takes to get them up and running on a new laptop, complete with their previous configuration (including any customization they’ve made), all of their user data and applications, and virtually no loss of productivity – and less of a headache for the IT administrator.

Sure, you still lose the hardware (assuming it isn’t recovered or found) but that’s much less of a loss than it could be otherwise.

Want to try NxTop for yourself? We’re still perfecting it but take a moment to register and we’ll let you know as soon as NxTop is available for download.

I recently wrote an article for Virtualization Journal. In the article I give an overview of virtualization but quickly move into the area of desktop virtualization, why companies will be embracing virtual desktops very soon, the differences between types of desktop virtualization (type 1 vs. type 2, which I also discuss here and, most importantly, I discuss how desktop virtualization with a type 1 hypervisor (bare-metal) is going to really change the way PCs are managed.

The model of directly executing multiple virtual environments on the same physical PC in full isolation from each other enables many important PC management functions, including but not limited to:

• System updates
• Backup
• Recovery from errors
• Root-kit detection
• Malware and software virus detection
• Machine lockdown
• Full support for mobility and disconnect use

These capabilities are provided for all desktop operating environments running on PC architecture, while remaining protected from each other and their security vulnerabilities. This model of desktop virtualization is suitable for devices that are always connected to the network, such as stationary desktop PCs connected via a persistent network connection, and mobile notebooks that can be occasionally disconnected from the corporate networks.

Go to Virtualization Journal for the full article and check out what we are doing with NxTop to make virtual desktops a reality.

Desktop virtualization offers so much potential to reinvent the way that PC management is done.  The biggest challenge for us at times is determining where to focus next.  We are interested in understanding what your biggest PC management pain points are, particularly when it comes to those pesky laptop PCs.  New device deployment?  Patching?  Backup?  Data security and encryption? Tell us where it hurts.  We can help.  If you are a LinkedIn user, you can respond to the question I posted there: What are the biggest headaches that IT professionals face with managing laptop PCs?

If you don’t use LinkedIn, feel free to post a comment here on the blog.

The person with the best response will win one of our limited edition Virtual Computer bowling shirts, as featured at VMworld last week.  I will post a summary of the results on the blog once the LinkedIn question closes (7 days from now).

Also, if you haven’t yet joined the Virtual Computer LinkedIn Group, what are you waiting for?

Greetings from VMworld in Las Vegas, where earlier today we announced something we’ve been having a really hard time keeping a secret: NxTop. Since we just announced it today, you might not know what NxTop is. Quite simply: NxTop makes it easy to manage thousands of PCs (either laptops or desktops) just as you would manage one – without agents and without compromising the end user experience in any way.

How do we do this? We’re combining a bare-metal PC virtualization platform with a powerful management console for IT admins (with a nice web interface!) – which means that PC management just got a whole lot easier and more secure.

We’ve shared our plans for NxTop with real world IT administrators and industry analysts and they’re letting us know this is what they need:

“NxTop is the first desktop virtualization product I have seen that delivers extensive manageability and rigorous security benefits while respecting the individual business needs of mobile users,” said John Christly, manager of Information Technology Security and HIPAA security officer for Memorial Healthcare System of Miramar, Florida. “My department is managing a large number of laptops and as a healthcare organization, security of these laptops and the data on each of them is a top priority. In the past few years, we’ve read of too many companies that have experienced data loss or security breaches. We are always seeking new and innovative methods of system and data security. Therefore, I welcome a product like NxTop, which will fill a market need that has been unmet for quite some time.”

For more information, check out our website, which we just relaunched today with full product information and use cases.

Leave a comment and let me know what you think of NxTop or, if you’re at VMworld, stop by our booth for a demo (we’re in booth #562). I’m eager to hear what you have to say.

We’ve officially launched Virtual Computer, Inc. and couldn’t be happier! After many months of hard work, we’re excited for you and the rest of the world to learn more about what we’ve been working on.

Our press release — Old Road Computing Emerges from Stealth to Launch as Virtual Computer, Inc. – is available on our brand new website and explains that “Virtual Computer will deliver solutions that capitalize on virtualization technology to reduce the cost of managing corporate PCs while improving their reliability, security, and usability.”

It’ll be a bit longer before we announce exactly what our product is and does (let us know who you are and we’ll make sure you are among the first to hear about our upcoming product).

Virtualization.com picked up on our company launch news and talks a little about what we’re doing:

The software would be designed to isolate a laptop’s four major components — hardware, operating system, applications and user data — and create versions on the laptop of those components that operate remotely, without a network connection. The software would operate transparently for the user and it would enable wholesale security updates and other types of upgrades when connected to the network. Isolating the portions of the system enables it to limit access to work-related applications while enabling users to install their own personal preferences on the device.

As I said earlier, much more to come. Contact us at info@virtualcomputer.com and let us know what you think or leave us a comment here on the blog.

Mass High Tech broke the news on our upcoming company launch in their cover story: Stealthy virtualization startup makes laptops more secure, manageable.

The entire article is an excellent read and lets you know a little about what we’re doing:

The [Virtual Computer] software would be designed to isolate a laptop’s four major components — hardware, operating system, applications and user data — and create versions on the laptop of those components that operate remotely, without a network connection.

There’s more to it and those that know what we’re up to are excited. Chris Wolf, of the Burton Group, says “They’re going to redefine how organizations can deploy virtualization to a mobile workforce.” That’s exactly what we aim to do…make it easy to manage all of those laptops that your organization has and will have, in a secure environment.

As you can no doubt tell, all of us here at Virtual Computer are passionate and excited about what we’re doing. Check back next week for more details.

Earlier this week, I noted HP’s increase in laptop sales (sure to be followed up by similar increases at other vendors) and it got me thinking about how difficult in can be to manage all of those mobile desktops. Besides the basics of desktop management (patches, updates and so on), there are all of the usual security issues and brand new ones (theft is a bigger issue when laptops are “out in the world” and it’s more likely that some form of malware will be installed when someone is using their work laptop to surf the web at home). One has to be careful and diligent about laptop management, even moreso than “regular” desktop management.

Don’t get me wrong: laptops offer many benefits over traditional desktops and the decreased cost of laptops is allowing more and more people to see these benefits — and as an end-user, I love the flexibility my laptop offers me.

Are you responsible for laptop management? What are your concerns? Leave a comment and let me know.