Availigent, the Linux application virtualization start-up, has gotten a $12.2 million B round from Intel Capital, which led, as well as existing backers Diamondhead Ventures and Smart Technology Ventures.

The money follows on a $4 million A round almost three years ago, when the company, which started out selling embedded Linux to telecoms at the worst of all possible times, was reinvented. It is earmarked for product development and sales expansion.

The start-up, whose Duration software has been out for 12-18 months, has an installed base in the lower double-digits and arrangements with HP and Lenovo, which are taking it into their accounts.

Availigent figures it has about two years before VMware enters the application virtualization space and by then the start-up expects to be profitable. Of course, VMware could always buy it.

Duration 2.0, soon to be Duration 3.0, lets enterprise data centers achieve 5Nines application availability (no more than five minutes downtime a year). It does fault detection and fault recovery at the application level.

Naturally Duration supports Intel's chip-based Virtualization Technology.

The company says its biggest competition currently comes from homegrown software. That's on the Linux side. Microsoft, meanwhile, has just closed its acquisition of Softricity Inc, which does application virtualization and uses dynamic streaming to deploy, update and move programs around. Microsoft is counting on the stuff to help migrate users to Vista and its Longhorn server.

With Softricity now a Microsoft subsidiary, Microsoft is promising cut-rate versions of SoftGrid for Desktops and SoftGrid for Terminal Services, both of which include Softricity's ZeroTouch web-based access and self-service portal functionality. Microsoft said Systems Management Server (SMS) 2003 will be able to acquire Softricity's SMS connector as a free download.