Calista Technologies

Enterprises face strategic goals of increased security, regulatory compliance, availability and disaster recovery that are in conflict with cost containment. Virtualization, by providing an abstraction between the physical hardware layer and the application users, has been the breakthrough architecture for servicing these conflicting strategic and budgetary goals. While server and storage virtualization has already gained rapid acceptance, desktop virtualization provides an opportunity for an even more compelling return on investment.

Calista Technologies is pioneering the next generation of desktop virtualization solutions that provide the richness and responsiveness of a locally executing desktop while preserving the security, management and cost benefits of a centralized computing strategy. Calista is the only virtual desktop platform providing the user interface and cost per desktop to support broad adoption.

Calista targets the high growth virtual desktop market by bringing the quality, performance and user experience of a traditional desktop to virtualized desktops at a compelling price per seat. The patent pending Calista Virtual GPU (Graphics Processing Unit) technology dramatically improves user experience and increases user density per server, lowering costs per user.

The company, which was founded in 2006, is headquartered in San Jose, California; first products are scheduled to ship in 2008. Calista Technologies has received funding by top tier Silicon Valley venture capitalists. Calista’s management team has significant start-up experience with multiple successes to their credit.

Data security concerns, disaster recovery requirements, desktop support costs and increased desktop hardware requirements are drivers increasing virtualization and centralization of desktop software and hardware resource initiatives. IDC predicts that the number of desktops using virtualized client computing will grow to almost 40M units by 2011. Desktop virtualization benefits are clear, but adoption is dependent on closing the user experience, functionality and performance gap between traditional desktops and virtualized desktops—at a significant cost savings. The build-out of high bandwidth networks, cost efficient high performance server technology, virtual machine maturity and abundant processing power provide much of the foundation for desktop virtualization. Leveraging its patent pending Virtual GPU (Graphics Processing Unit) technology, Calista Technologies is addressing the critical user experience gap between traditional and virtualized desktops: the ability to run rich media applications with high performance and high fidelity at a significantly lower price per desktop.

Neal Margulis (Founder, COB):
Neal has almost 20 years of experience in the technology industry. With a powerful combination of engineering and marketing expertise, Neal has formulated winning development strategies and helped build several successful companies. Prior to Calista, Neal was president and CEO of iCompression, a leading developer of voice and video codec technology for the broadband and consumer markets. Prior to iCompression, Neal was general manager at S3 responsible for their market-leading 3D graphics technology. Neal started his career as a x86 engineer at Intel. Neal is the primary inventor on nine issued U.S. patents and has a BS degree in Electrical Engineering from the University of Vermont.

John Schroeder (President, CEO):
John joined Calista Technologies based on seeing enterprises struggle with the challenges of efficiently managing physical IT resources while responding to ever increasing business requirements. John has over 25 years of enterprise technology industry experience. In his most recent operating role, John was President and CEO of Rainfinity. Rainfinity is now a key technology in the EMC’s server (VMWare) and storage virtualization strategy. In addition to Rainfinity previous positions include Senior Vice President of SQRIBE Technologies; Open Systems General Manager at Compuware and General Manager of DB2 Products at Candle Corp. John has a BS in computer science from Southern Illinois University.

Anil Kumar (Co-founder, Vice President of Engineering):
Anil has over twenty years of experience delivering successful computer video/graphics systems to market. Previously, Anil co-founded DigitalQuake Inc., a flat panel display controller company which was acquired by National Semiconductor in 2002. Prior to National Semiconductor, he founded Dxtrous Inc., a Software Consulting company whose clients included iCompression, ICS, STB/3DFx and Sony Transcom. Anil has also held technical and managerial positions at S3 Inc. Anil has a MS degree in Computer Science from Washington State University.

Asael Dror (Co-founder, Chief Architect):
Asael Dror has over 20 years experience in conceiving, architecting, developing, and evaluating cutting-edge system software and hardware. At Calista Technologies, he is responsible for the overall system architecture and key algorithms. His graphics experience began at Chips and Technologies, where he invented and implemented the first 32-bit, flat-memory display architecture for Windows. He has also consulted to industry leaders, including: ATI, Microsoft, MGI Software, Oak Technology, S3, Sigma Designs, Standard Microsystems, Western Digital, and Zoran. Asael was the founder and Editor-in-Chief of the Windows Developer Letter, as well as the author of three computer programming books. Prior to joining Calista, Asael was the Director of Platform Technologies at Teneros.

Max Herrmann (Vice President of Marketing):
Max has spent most of his career in the virtual desktop and server-based computing market. Max leads Calista’s worldwide marketing efforts and has over 17 years of marketing, sales and management experience in the high-tech industry. Max joined Calista from the desktop marketing team at Sun Microsystems. Prior to Sun, Max held executive marketing roles at both Tarantella and New Moon Systems. Max holds the equivalents of a Master’s degree in Aerospace Engineering from the University of Stuttgart, and of an MBA from the Technical University of Munich.