OCT. 22, 2010 • The trend in free-to-play online games is for more involved titles that mirror the depth and quality of retail products. DFC Intelligence recently published a major report on client-based free-to-play games. This report forecasts the number of registered users for these games to reach 633 million by 2015, just for English language games. However, much of this depends on improvements in the technology infrastructure.

One of the main conclusions of DFC’s report was that broadband technology in North America and Europe lags behind more established markets like South Korea. This means downloading the necessary thick clients for robust free-to-play games can be a painfully drawn out process and this has really limited the market so far. So far this has meant growth in free-to-play games has been minimal compared to markets in Asia. There is clearly an opportunity for cloud streaming services like Spoon to step in and streamline the experience.

Spoon is only now fully embracing the consumer market, but that could be seen as a definite advantage. Much of the early press attention on cloud gaming has gone to OnLive and Gaikai – both of which are largely unproven enterprises. Spoon, however, has solid enterprise origins that make the company a stable and appealing option. Chief executive Kenji Obata sat down with DFC to elaborate on where Spoon fits in.

DFC: Tell us more about Spoon and your products. What is the company all about? How has the focus changed as the company has evolved from Code Systems Corp., to Xenocode to Spoon?

Kenji: Spoon specializes in app virtualization and streaming technology. Our mission is to make desktop applications available for everyone to run on the web with no installs or setup. Our products enable software publishers to publish their applications online – on Facebook, Spoon. net, or third-party sites – without code changes. You can find examples at Spoon.net.

The focus of our company has remained the same. However, in recent months we have moved into the popular games and apps market, introducing our technology to a new consumer base.

Spoon will be the first company to offer free cloud hosting for games and our online App Library will give people instant, download-free access to thousands of popular titles. Here are some ways that Spoon’s technology benefits enterprises, software publishers and consumers:

Enterprises – Spoon offers the most cost-effective way for IT managers to distribute apps across the enterprise and enables seamless migration of legacy apps to Microsoft Windows 7.

Software Publishers – Spoon enables software publishers to distribute existing rich desktop apps via the Web, increasing customer satisfaction, reducing support costs, and enabling new software­as­a­service (SaaS)­based, rental­baseed, and ad­based business models.

Consumers – Spoon eliminates the barriers presented by long downloads, complex installations, and failures due to conflicts or missing dependencies such as the .NET Framework, Adobe AIR and Java.

DFC: What prompted the re­branding to Spoon earlier this year? What does the new name bring you that Xenocode did not? How has the new branding been received by your clients?

Kenji: The name Xenecode served us well when we were in the enterprise space, but we decided we needed a more accessible, light­hearted name when we expanded into the consumer market. Our name change coincided with the launch of our new Spoon Server product, which allows desktop applications to be streamed from the web with no installs. The introduction of Spoon.net helps us reach a more universal audience and we wanted a name with more universal appeal.

DFC: What percentage of your clients continue to use Spoon Studio on an ongoing basis as opposed to those who employ Spoon for a single project?

Kenji: The majority of our Studio customer base has used Spoon Studio for at least three years. Typically, customers continue using Studio for subsequent versions on an ongoing basis.

DFC: Who are your competitors?

Kenji: VMWare ThinApp and Microsoft App-V are probably the closest competitors to Spoon. We each offer the ability to virtualize and stream applications. However, our technology and solutions are quite different. For example, App-V is optimized for use in a highly managed, high­speed local network environment within a Microsoft infrastructure. It also utilizes device drivers and specialized protocols to execute and stream applications.

By contrast, Spoon works efficiently over the Web, delivers applications via HTTP, does not require any device drivers or administrative privileges and has minimal infrastructure requirements. Spoon also has significant  scaling advantages because we run apps locally on your desktop.  One Spoon Server can support more than 10,000 people as opposed to roughly 50 users per server with other solutions.

In the gaming space, companies like On Live and Gaikai are also working to bring games to the cloud. However, our technology is fundamentally different – other solutions are server­based and have heavy data center and bandwidth requirements. By contrast, Spoon is highly scalable, users have the same experience as a traditional install (e.g. no latency or video degradation), and Spoon supports both online and off­line execution. In particular, Spoon’s highly scalable technology allows us to offer cloud hosting of applications free to both users and publishers.

DFC: What are the best uses of a software virtual environment such as Spoon? Which applications run best in a Spoon virtual desktop environment?

Kenji: Enterprises typically use Spoon Server to provide a central Web portal where employees can access the enterprise’s entire application portfolio with a single click and no installs. Spoon Server also supports delivery directly to desktops via Active Directory group policy or SharePoint portals.

Spoon enables new and legacy enterprise desktop applications to run side-by-side without conflicts.  For example, with Spoon, users can run Microsoft Office 2003, 2007, and 2010 simultaneously. Spoon also allows legacy applications such as Internet Explorer 6 to run on Windows 7, dramatically reducing the costs and risks associated with migration to the latest Windows operating systems.

DFC: What kind of games run well in Spoon Apps, and which games don’t run well?

Kenji: Spoon works well with almost all games and applications. One important class of games that is currently not supported is “open world” type games, which we plan on supporting in Spoon’s next major update.

DFC: What percentage of Spoon Apps are games versus utilities, etc.?

Kenji: About one third of current Spoon applications are games.

DFC: How well does Spoon work with advanced graphics processors in displaying higher­end games?

Kenji: Spoon is extremely well suited to handle rich graphical games and is an ideal use for Spoon’s zero­install Web delivery technology. Spoon fully supports DirectX and hardware acceleration technologies, and both windowed and full screen game titles. Unlike server­based hosting technologies, Spoon does not cause any degradation in game responsiveness or impact the image quality creating a better user experience.

DFC: Is there a hit to frames­per­second rates using Spoon for games, if so, what percentage is the loss?

Kenji: For most titles and client computing environments, there is no noticeable performance reduction while running within the Spoon virtual environment. Performance may be reduced by 5% to 10% if buffering is occurring in the background.

DFC: Can a Spoon App interact with other versions of the same software via the Internet? Say on social networks or game multiplayer matchmaking?

Kenji: Yes. Spoon apps behave the same as natively installed applications. Spoon preserves any existing game lobby and network behavior.

DFC: One feature of Spoon Apps is the ability to run multiple versions of the same program without conflicts. If a user wanted to run two separate EVE Online clients (separate accounts) at the same time, Would that be possible?

Kenji: We have not tested the EVE client specifically and the answer would depend on the specific behavior of the EVE protocol and server – specifically whether it supports multiple logins from a single IP.  In general, this would work if the application is not specifically designed to prevent it.

DFC: What percentage of Spoon apps are delivered via streaming versus a single executable?

Kenji: All applications on Spoon.net are streamed. In addition, Spoon has an existing installed base of thousands of developers with standalone executables deployed to millions of desktops.

DFC: For streaming, why would a publisher choose Spoon over a service like Gaikai that is able to deliver to other platforms in addition to Windows PCs?

Kenji: For the following reasons:

1. Spoon provides a zero-­latency experience with no graphics degradation.

2. Spoon supports both online and off­line execution.

3. Spoon cloud hosting is free.

Publishers who choose to use Spoon Server enjoy more than 100 times the scalability of server­based solutions such as OnLive or Gaikai.

DFC: Why must the Spoon plug-­in run every time Windows is launched, regardless of whether Spoon Apps are launched later?

Kenji: The Spoon Sandbox process hosts virtualized environments, manages updates and patching, enables desktop-based launches, and performs other background activities that require it to run as a service.

DFC: Please describe your revenue model. How does Spoon make money?

Kenji: Spoon generates revenue through sales of its products including Spoon Server and Spoon Studio, and technology licensing.  In addition, Spoon is introducing a cloud gaming service and online store at Spoon.net.

DFC: Please describe Spoon Server. This product is a recent addition. How and why was it developed?

Kenji: Spoon Server was launched in June 2010 and allows enterprise IT managers to deliver desktop apps via the Web, Active Directory, and SharePoint without installs, long downloads, or dependencies such as .NET. Spoon Server was developed to add web delivery, management, and analytics capabilities on top of the existing Spoon application virtualization platform.

DFC: Is this more of an IT manager distribution tool, or a distribution tool more for software publishers?

Kenji: Both. Spoon Server simplifies app deployment, dramatically reduces maintenance and support costs and enables legacy apps to run unmodified on Microsoft Windows 7.  Enterprises can make desktop apps available to users wherever they are via the Web, Microsoft SharePoint, or directly from the Start menu, even on locked-down desktops.  Software publishers and independent software vendors (ISVs) can use Spoon Server to launch evaluation versions directly from their websites without installation or downloads.  Additionally, with Spoon Server and Spoon.net, existing desktop apps can be converted into SaaS or ad-based offerings.

DFC: What companies are using Spoon Server?

Kenji: Spoon’s primary target customers are software publishers and enterprises. Spoon has customers in the education, government, financial services, gaming, and IT sectors, and its technology and products are being used by a number of organizations including Autodesk, Novell and the United States Marine Corps.

DFC: If a software publisher wanted to stream multiple titles nationwide with Spoon Server, how would they set up these servers? How far can users be from a Spoon Server for a streamed Spoon App not to lag? How many Spoon servers would be needed for nationwide coverage?

Kenji: The precise implementation details would depend on the application size and network topology. However, generally, speaking, in this type of scenario we would recommend using Spoon in conjunction with a CDN (Spoon is fully CDN compatible). In addition, the Spoon.net hosted service can be used to enable efficient worldwide distribution of applications.

DFC: What addition utility does Spoon Server bring to streaming Spoon Apps that another streaming solution would lack?

Kenji: There are numerous technological advantages, but Spoon Server is the only solution available today that enables practical, efficient distribution of applications over the web.

DFC: Would Spoon Server and Spoon Studio make for a viable solution to deliver large free-to-play game clients, and if so, why?

Kenji: Absolutely. Spoon.net provides free cloud hosting for free-to-play game clients. Hosting game clients in the cloud gives users access to their favorite free-to-play games wherever they are, without the hassles of installs and downloads.