eCommerce Journal

SIMtone Corporation, a privately held company delivering the next cloud computing paradigm, today announced the release of the first end-to-end universal cloud computing platform. The SIMtone Universal Cloud Computing Platform enables multiple cloud services, such as “PCs in the Cloud,” virtual desktops, DaaS and SaaS, or Web services to be hosted and managed simply, securely and inexpensively in any datacenter, and ubiquitously accessible by end-users with a single user ID, on-demand and on-the-fly, via any device, on any broadband connection, and without requiring a computer at the edge.

The SIMtone platform allows network operators and their business customers to quickly build and ubiquitously deliver highly scalable, secure and very low-cost cloud computing services such as virtual desktops, DaaS, SaaS applications, and other Web services to anyone, anywhere, on-demand and on-the-fly.

It is the only solution that enables any cloud computing service to be securely hosted, managed and controlled by service providers, enterprises and small businesses, and be offered as broadly available and accessible telecommunication services by network operators. Designed and built to match Tier-1 carrier’s scalability requirements and enterprise security needs, the SIMtone platform scales massively and reliably using commodity hardware, and reduces power usage across the entire network, from the end-point to the datacenter, allowing for unparalleled economies of scale and unprecedented low provisioning costs for the operator, the cloud service provider and the end user. With the SIMtone platform, network operators can host, manage and deliver their own cloud computing services as well as offer, seamless, mobile and secure on-demand access to their business customer’s privately managed “cloud datacenters,” simply and very inexpensively, without any additional network asset build-out and eliminating all end-point management costs.

“This is computing without your computer, simply and safely available to you, everywhere you are. We believe this is what cloud computing is all about, and we are making it a mass market reality today. Users want simple, instant and pervasive access to their personal or office computers, on-demand and with no hassles. Businesses want to consolidate, simplify their IT infrastructure and mobilize their people, increasing productivity and security while reducing cost, and network operators want to move beyond simply providing “dumb pipes,” and deliver inexpensive, scalable and reliable value-added services for their enterprise, small business and consumer markets that are usable on-demand and on-the-fly by everyone of their subscribers on any of their networks,” explained Mario Dal Canto, SIMtone Corporation’s Chairman of the Board and Chief Executive Officer. “The new SIMtone Universal Cloud Computing platform uniquely addresses each of these critical market needs, eliminating complexity and cost, enabling the simplest and most effective migration to this powerful new computing paradigm, and delivering the most scalable and secure solution to realize this vast market opportunity.”

SIMtone’s carrier-grade cloud computing software platform consists of three product lines – the Universal Service Provisioning Platform (USP) products, specifically designed for network operators, the Virtual Service Platform (VSP) products, designed for businesses, enterprises and service providers, and the SNAP product line, for end users, a series of zero-touch software and hardware terminals usable with any cloud computing service delivered via the SIMtone.

The SIMtone Universal Service Provisioning Platform (SIMtone USP) provides the equivalent of a carrier-class signaling (a “dial-tone”) for delivery of multiple, diverse cloud-hosted operating systems and application services to zero-touch user terminals, accessible by the end user via single SIMtone user ID, making it easy to provision, manage and deliver all types of value-added cloud computing services on-demand and on-the-fly anywhere and on any device end-users may need them. The SIMtone USP operator’s product line includes several OAM expansion modules that enable “in cloud” granular service profiling, billing, reporting and management for the network operator and each cloud service provider, service aggregation and branding management solutions, and multi-tiered, multi-cloud, self-service end-user support solutions, all 100% network provisioned, with no end-point management required.

The SIMtone Virtual Service Platform (SIMtone VSP) quickly and inexpensively transforms enterprises or small/medium businesses’ applications and desktop environments into highly manageable cloud computing services, securely and ubiquitously accessible from any SIMtone cloud terminal. The SIMtone VSP provides a simple, inexpensive and flexible path towards virtualization, offering enterprises and small/medium businesses a smooth, continuous and failback-safe migration from distributed to virtual desktop environments, flexibly and securely manageable in-house or in external hosting facilities. SIMtone VSP enables multiple and diverse operating systems and applications hosted in Virtual environments, terminal servers, blade PCs as well on existing distributed desktop PCs, to be aggregated, managed, migrated and provisioned as end-users cloud services very simply. SIMtone VSP supports any combination of VMware Server and ESX, Windows XP, Vista and Terminal Server hosts, multi-zone network security, and offers automated, user-activity driven, peak capacity based guest machine management, load balancing, and failure recovery, radically reducing virtual datacenters real-estate and power requirements.

With zero-touch SIMtone Cloud terminals, called SNAPs, all SIMtone cloud computing services can be easily and securely accessed from any Internet, wireless, 3G, LAN or WAN connection. SIMtone SNAP zero-touch terminals are offered as standalone, low cost hardware appliances, usable on LAN, WAN and public Internet connections, out of the box, with no configuration required, as well as free, downloadable software terminals usable on browsers or on PCs, thin clients and mobile devices. SIMtone is introducing today the SNAPbook, a mobile, low-cost, low power, wireless zero-touch SNAP terminal based on the Asus Eee hardware, offering the first mobile, on-demand and on-the-fly access to any cloud computing service without a computer. All SIMtone SNAP terminals deliver the full, native end-user experience created by each computing service hosted in the cloud, including full frame-rate desktop media and native USB services for printing, storage and synchronization for devices like PDAs or iPod.

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