[swies]

Hi everyone!

We'd like to especially encourage any news.yc readers who write windows apps to distribute them via BaseShield. Just get in touch with me at my personal email: pat (at) baseshield.com -- if you want to list it for free we'll get it up right away, if you'd like to charge you'll be at the top of the list once we get payments going.

Thanks!

[jwilliams]

Not sure if you have this on your radar, but this would be useful in the corporate world.

Corporates spend massive amounts on deploying desktop software - and even then it's a painful, risky process. This would assist that process in a lot of ways.

(Edit: And when I say massive - I mean massive. I've seen XP deploys that were in the 10's to 100's of millions. A big chunk of this is software packaging and deploy).

[thorax]

It is a big marketplace with huge players (i.e. Microsoft, Symantec, Citrix, etc) already doing app virtualization/streaming. Still, since it's so large other major companies will be looking for a good platform to build upon if they can get into it, too.

I made a comment above which is probably better suited for this thread: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=377308

[jwilliams]

> Still, since it's so large other major companies will be looking for a good platform to build upon if they can get into it, too.

Yup - And I don't think any of the big players have really "nailed it" by a long shot yet. Corps still spend a vast amount of time in packaging/testing.

Also, there is probably a neat open source niche there - take on a BaseShield style service, then simply pick up pre-packaged X-Y-Z, with all the updates/etc. Just as you would a mature distro.

I can see that being a really appealing model.

[bd]

If I may suggest, please change your demo video soundtrack. Looping music was very distracting, as if something went wrong. Thanks to this it was painful to watch otherwise awesome demo.

[zhyder]

Agreed. Though I like how the demo (incl music) is modeled after the iPhone ads; don't change that!

[thorax]

I'd like to know more about the virtualization piece-- what kind of apps can run?

Some of our apps could be a bit lower-level (services, kernel-mode drivers, etc). Does BaseShield allow those? I know most system virtualization platforms cannot handle those without a full virtualized OS.

[skuzins]

The virtualization layer only supports user mode applications; kernel mode drivers unfortunately won't work. Services are not yet supported but support may be added in the future.

[henning]

Does BaseShield manage updates the way services like Steam do? (It automatically checks for updates when you open up the service, and if they exist downloads and installs them.)

Can BaseShield run .NET apps, or just native code?

[skuzins]

At the moment you have to go to an app's page and if there's an update you can get it with one click. There's a lot of potential for further automation.

.NET support is in the works.

[andrewf]

Have you considered supporting third party "packaging" formats for Windows? Some companies, for instance, have already done the work to package up their product for U3.

[omouse]

One suggestion; could you show a list of apps/games supported?