Provision Networks

Founded: March 2004

Headquarters: Reston, Virginia

What does the company offer? Virtual Access Suite (VAS) hosted desktop and presentation virtualization infrastructure. Compatible with virtualization software from Microsoft, SWsoft, Virtual Iron, VMware and XenSource, VAS consolidates virtual application delivery and desktop deployment from those companies' virtual machines, as well as blade PCs and Provision's own terminal servers.

Why is it worth watching? VAS improves management and security while keeping costs in check, users say. "We needed the ability to scale our business without increasing desktop-support costs," says Gary Parkinson, IT director with Isaac Agnew, a U.K. automobile retailer. "With over 600 network PCs across 17 retail locations, we needed to deploy new applications quickly, securely and efficiently to a standard desktop, regain control of those desktops, and turn them into simple, task-based tools. Provision helped make the deployment and control a much easier experience."

How did the company get its start? Spun off from Emergent OnLine, one of Citrix Systems' largest partners.

How did the company get its name? The founders wanted a name that suggests desktop and application provisioning.

Management: Co-founder and CEO Peter Ghostine also founded Emergent OnLine, and had been vice president of international sales and operations for V-One (now AEP Networks).

Funding: US$6 million in private funding.

Who's using the product? Aflac, Brightstar, Computer Sciences, Dole Foods, Hitachi, Investools, U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs and Xerox.

Scalent Systems

Founded: January 2003

Headquarters: Palo Alto, California.

What does the company offer? Scalent makes server-repurposing software. Its Virtual Operating Environment (V/OE) provides data-center infrastructure virtualization (aka physical machine, network and storage movement), easing disaster recovery, test automation and on-demand computing requirements. It works with the AIX, Linux, Solaris, Windows, VMware ESX and Xen operating systems.

Why is it worth watching? When servers -- even virtual machines -- move, their connectivity needs to move with them, and that's something most virtual-server vendors don't address. V/OE addresses the physical side, remotely turning on machines and making sure they have the right network address, storage access and operating system or hypervisor booting.

How did the company get its start? The founders noticed the problems caused by manually shifting machines, cables, and network- and storage-access architectures whenever testing, disaster recovery or other changes are made.

How did the company get its name? Scalability is the challenge the company set out to solve, hence the name Scalent.

Management: Benjamin Linder, CEO, was previously with Openwave Systems and Oracle.

Funding: US$37 million in three rounds, from Credit Suisse, Hummer-Winblad, JK&B Capital and Pequot Ventures.

Who's using the product? Ameriquest, Blackboard, Carilion Health System and Wachovia.