NTT Communications Launches Virtual Office Hosting

Beginning April 1, NTT Communications (News - Alert) will be launching a global hosting service that creates office PC environments which can be securely accessed from anywhere using a USB key.

Virtual Office Hosting will be provided under NTT Com’s BizCITY model. With this new service, employees will be able to safely replicate their office computer’s desktop environment on their personal PC, in a domestic or remote office, or a shared PC in a hotel business center. All users have to do is insert a personalized "MagicConnect" USB key into their remote PC to access office e-mail, groupware and run office applications on a virtual PC hosted with VMware Infrastructure 3 virtualization technology at NTT Com’s robust data center in Hong Kong.  Since no data will be stored in the remote PC, all information will remain secure.

Initially, the Virtual Office Hosting will be available in Mainland China, Hong Kong, Malaysia, Singapore, Taiwan, India, Indonesia, Thailand and Vietnam. The company also plans to expand into other regions shortly. Support will be provided in English and Chinese on a 24/7 basis and also in Japanese which will be available between 9 a.m. and 6 p.m. on business days.

Service options include applications such as Microsoft (News - Alert) Office, messaging (mail, scheduler and groupware), antivirus software, virtual PC management and data backup.

William Shelton, director, emerging products and solutions, VMware, said NTT Communications’ successful rollout of its new services demonstrates the critical role of VMware’s VDC-OS in transforming the datacenter into a cloud environment that addresses customers’ stringent demands for resiliency, flexibility and speed in their IT systems.

VMware was committed to providing the industry’s most comprehensive virtualization platform, which offers customers a highly flexible and scalable virtual datacenter operating system (VDC-OS). VMware solutions can easily be deployed by service providers such as NTT Communications as the foundation for innovative services.

Virtual Office Hosting service is expected to help meet growing needs for enterprise employees to have secure access to their office PCs while they travel away from office and home.

Hiroyuki Tsutsumi, managing director of Cisco Systems G.K., a major supplier of network equipment to NTT Com, said "NTT Com’s global SaaS (News - Alert) hosting platform is highly relevant to today’s fast-changing global business because it supports diversified work environments. In partnership with VMware, Cisco (News - Alert) Systems is pursuing the virtualization of applications and networks for cloud-computing network services available anytime, anywhere."