When talking about VDI there is always an evaluation between the productivity benefit and the costs and complexity associated. To bring VDI to any size and kind of company it needs to be easy to install on any server as well as cost-efficient. Tocario tries to tackle these challenges with a self-installable VDi that is offered as a freemium model, which is free to use for small teams.
At a the launch of the product Apexo tocario claims that this will change fundamentally with the introduction of the new product.
In recent years, two major US vendors who have brought a constant flow of innovations to the market have dominated the world of on-premise desktop virtualization. These innovations are primarily aimed at the needs of large enterprise customers.
As a specialist for cloud technologies from Europe, tocario has always had a different perspective. In addition to the natural focus on data protection and data security, the composition of the market in Europe are also very different. The market is dominated by small and medium-sized enterprises, who have a global reach.
"Within such an ecosystem, it is natural for a new technology to have a different focus," says Carsten Unnerstall, co-founder and CEO of tocario. "The focus was and is to make desktop virtualization accessible to all enterprise sizes," he continues.
The first product of tocario was a turnkey cloud desktop virtualization technology. Thanks to its high level of self-service and integrated multi-tenant capability, service providers are able to deploy virtual desktops fully automated even for the smallest customers. In addition to micro-segmentation capabilities to enable high data security for each tenant, the "infrastructure-as-a-service" approach in desktop virtualization is absolutely unique. This allows the operation of any x86 operating system as a VDI in the data center.
"These capabilities open up completely new uses for virtual desktops in businesses beyond Windows VDI or Terminal Services. We have seen very creative ways of customers using our technology and believe, that SMBs should be able to benefit as well. That's why we've decided to make our technology accessible to any size of business or installation," said Unnerstall.
The new product with the speaking name Apexo is the further development of the previous technology. The new software can be downloaded for free at the tocario website and can be installed on any server. The innovation lies in the way the software can be put into operation. Apexo is announced as an all-in-one solution, which includes hypervisor, management and automation as well as user management.
The installation is done via guided dialogue and creates a Hyper-Converged Desktop Infrastructure on the server. Apexo is aimed at IT operators of all sizes who want to run VDI installations. The product is able to be installed on-premise, in the Cloud (it needs bare-metal-as-a-service) or can be run as-a-Service for Service Providers who are looking at building a Desktop-as-a-Service offering.
With their pricing model tocario deliberately positions itself different to the market. Licensing is not based on the number of users but on the number of parallel desktops. The first nine desktops are completely free to use, which could make this technology very popular with SMBs and shadow IT.
"For the first time in Desktop Virtualization, we introduce a freemium model. Everyone can download our software for free and use up to nine desktops completely free of charge. We hope to finally make Enterprise Desktop Virtualization accessible to all companies. Customer benefit and added value are paramount. Complex installations and complicated pricing models will no longer be a barrier to VDI in the future," commented Michael Kurz, Chief Sales Officer at tocario.
Apexo is now available as a preview version at www.tocario.com/download