Desktone and Marubeni Corporation, a leading Japanese conglomerate, today announced that they have signed an agreement to deliver virtual desktops as a service® in Japan.

As part of the partnership, Marubeni will offer cloud-based virtual desktops based on the Desktone Virtual-D Platform™ to academic and mid-tier enterprise organizations. Marubeni Information Systems, a subsidiary of Marubeni Corporation with deep expertise in creating IT business systems, is building the DaaS infrastructure that will host the Desktone-powered service.

“The cost and flexibility benefits that DaaS enables are driving global demand, and Japan is at the forefront of this adoption,” says Harry Ruda, CEO for Desktone. “Marubeni is an extremely well-respected organization with strong information systems capabilities and a rich history in providing outsourced IT services. Its vast experience and reach make Marubeni an ideal partner for Desktone.”

“Because of today’s economic climate, Japan’s mid-market enterprise and academic organizations are increasingly concerned with cutting costs and controlling expenses. At the same time, they continue to focus on ways to secure their IT investments and sensitive data,” said Kazunori Ohashi, General Manager, Business Development Team, for the IT Solution Business Department in Marubeni’s Finance, Logistics & IT Business Division. “Desktone-powered DaaS—which has proven very successful in our target markets—enables organizations to effectively address all of these needs, while operating with much more agility and responsiveness.”

Desktone’s Virtual-D Platform enables organizations to quickly realize the cost and flexibility benefits of virtual desktop computing without upfront CAPEX investments. Uniquely designed along two tiers (service provider and enterprise), it lets enterprises keep their data secure within their own infrastructure, and maintain ownership and control over their Windows OS images, applications and all relating licensing while outsourcing the physical data center infrastructure powering their virtual desktops to Marubeni.

Marubeni’s DaaS service is expected to launch in the summer, 2009.