VDI Disrupter MokaFive Names New CEO
Dave Robbins joined the startup earlier this month as chief executive, MokaFive confirmed Thursday. A 25-year technology veteran, Robbins was previously chairman, president and CEO of systems and security management specialist BigFix, which was acquired by IBM in 2010.
Outgoing CEO Dale Fuller, who had the role since March 2012, will remain on MokaFive's board of directors.
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"If I had to choose one word to describe Dave, it would be 'leader,'" Fuller said in a statement. "From his time at BigFix -- where he led a successful acquisition -- Dave consistently demonstrates the passion, focus and knowledge that is necessary to propel companies into industry leaders. I am thrilled to welcome Dave to MokaFive."
Robbins' previous CEO stints include Quantivo, Quippe Technologies and Lucidity. He was also a past COO of Citadon and a vice president at UltraData.
MokaFive was founded in 2005 and is based in Redwood City, Calif. The company offers a microkernel-based solution that runs a virtualized Linux, Mac OS or Windows desktop on a customer's own hardware, inside of a VMware Player implementation.
That software serves to divide the desktop stack into "virtual layers" -- OS, app and data -- and while a central server provides management for the virtual desktops, the client executes locally. That's in marked contrast to traditional, "tethered" VDI techniques, MokaFive says.
MokaFive has taken in about $36 million in venture capital funding since its founding, and in the past year, it debuted an indirect channel program. Doing so increased its sales pipeline by $300 million in three months, Bill Thompson, vice president of worldwide channels and sales, told CRN last fall.
"We were primarily direct. But we needed breadth, and through the channel you get the widest breadth," Thompson said at the time. "Now, the organization is 100 percent channel-focused. We want partners who want to invest."
PUBLISHED JAN. 24, 2013