From Application Virtualization to Xen, a round-up of the virtualization themes & topics being discussed in NYC June 23-24, 2008 by the world-class speaker faculty at the 3rd International Virtualization Conference & Expo being held by SYS-CON Events in The Roosevelt Hotel, in midtown Manhattan.

Sun is now offering a new virtualization service that will let ISVs run their Solaris apps in a multi-tenant on-demand environment without having to rewrite any code. The trick is in Solaris' Containers virtualization and its xVM widgetry. The new Solaris On Demand program will provide third-party hosting complements of NaviSite, AT&T USi Communications and NTT Europe Online.

Parallels announced that Solar Virtualization Technologies Group (VTG), a Platinum partner in the Parallels Service Provider Partner Program, is using Parallels technologies to launch new software-as-a-service (SaaS) solutions for small and medium businesses (SMBs). Parallels Automation datacenter software provides a centralized operations and business management system, which enables Solar VTG to offers its customers integrated mobile and messaging services that include Microsoft Exchange, Microsoft SharePoint and Blackberry Enterprise Server. Solar VTG provides a single interface to its customers who are actually accessing services that rely on several internal and external application servers and systems.

After a $1.5 million angel round, Desktone, which was started in 2006 by Eric Pulier, who also started SOA Software, US Interactive and IVT, picked up $17 million in first-round funding about a year ago from Highland Capital Partners, SoftBank Capital, Citrix Systems and the China-based Tangee International. SoftBank as well as Deutsche Telekom could become service providers. Ruda says the brains behind the technology is Paul Gaffney, the former CIO of Staples. The company has maybe 40 people, more than half of them in Shanghai doing development, which explains Tangee's involvement.

Sun Microsystems announced Solaris On Demand, its software as a service (SaaS) program for the independent software vendor (ISV) community. This program provides ISVs with the technology, hosted infrastructure and services needed to offer their software as a service. It is targeted at ISVs with a traditional, on-premise license model who want to offer their existing application on-demand without having to use a multi-tenancy application architecture. To provide the hosting services, Sun is working with several partners such as NaviSite for U.S.-based and European Union companies, AT&T's USi for U.S.-based companies and NTT Europe Online for European Union companies. With the Solaris On Demand program, ISVs can create offerings that meet the application availability, security, scalability and cost requirements of their own customers.

AXIGEN and Parallels announced the launch of a strategic technological partnership, in which the companies will offer an integrated AXIGEN Mail Server and Parallels Virtuozzo Containers solution for Service Providers offering virtualized hosting environments. The new AXIGEN-Parallels Virtuozzo Containers integration presents a high-end, flexible solution that enables Service Providers the ability to offer customized mail server solutions for customers via a SaaS model.