Online Event – Virtual Desktops: From Wow to How

Posted in: C-Level, Communicate, Deskside, Events, Words by thirdoctet on February 28, 2011 | No Comments

Special Online Event with Citrix and Intel

March 16th at 11AM PST / 2PM EST: “Virtual Desktops: From Wow to How” shows you the amazing capabilities and real-world applications of desktop virtualization for any user, on any device. This 1-hour session features a Q&A to help you get started. Register today and you could win a MacBook Air or a signed Dilbert® cartoon. Compliments of Citrix.

Learn how to make desktop virtualization a reality!

Introducing Microsoft Online Services

Posted in: Application Delivery, C-Level, Deskside, Green Technology, Messaging, Offers, SaaS, Storage, Third Octet News, Virtualization, Words by thirdoctet on July 28, 2010 | No Comments

In today’s competitive global market, businesses need technology that enables flexibility and cost-effectively adds value to their organization. Internet-based hosted services provide a way to meet these objectives. They deliver feature-rich productivity tools to users while helping to relieve the burden of managing and maintaining business systems—freeing up IT departments to focus on initiatives that can deliver true competitive advantage.

Microsoft has a long history of developing and delivering innovative software and services for businesses and individuals. Designed to meet your unique business needs, our software-plus-services vision brings together the best of rich on-premise applications and flexible online services to give you ready access to the latest messaging and collaboration tools – without costly deployment and time-consuming maintenance. Microsoft Online Services reliably delivers 99.9 percent scheduled uptime and carries a financially backed service level agreement.

Let Our IT Resources Work for You

Microsoft Online Services gives your business the powerful productivity capabilities of Microsoft Exchange Server, Microsoft Office SharePoint Server, Microsoft Office Communications Server, and Microsoft Office Live Meeting —all hosted online and all up and running quickly and easily without the upfront costs of an on-premise deployment. The suite of productivity tools enables your workers to communicate and collaborate effectively, while enabling your IT team to focus on more business-critical tasks. And with services hosted by Microsoft, you can have peace of mind knowing that experts are managing your IT and that your services will be available when you need them.

Features and Benefits

Microsoft Online Services makes it easy for you to leverage and rapidly deploy familiar Microsoft server products as flexible services.  These hosted services—the Business Productivity Online Standard Suite—include the following:

Provide employees access to e-mail, calendar, and contacts from virtually anywhere, at anytime, on desktops, laptops, and mobile devices—while helping to protect against malware and spam. Exchange Online can be rapidly deployed, flexibly expanded, and is designed to be securely administered using a powerful yet easy-to-use Web-based console.

Share documents, contacts, calendars, and tasks in a single location. Based on Microsoft Office SharePoint_® Server 2007, SharePoint Online delivers rich collaboration capabilities that enable team members to flexibly and efficiently collaborate, find organizational resources, search your intranet site, and manage content and workflow.

Connect with colleagues and customers through real-time meetings, training sessions, and events using only a PC with an Internet connection. Hosted Web conferencing services from Microsoft Office Live Meeting give your employees the power to collaborate wherever they are, to set up project meetings, brainstorm ideas, and collaborate on whiteboards without the cost and hassle of travel!

Enable users to find and rapidly connect with the right person from the applications they use most. Office Communications Online provides streamlined access to rich presence and instant messaging capabilities that are centrally managed by IT and work seamlessly with a range of Microsoft Office system programs.

How It Works

Each Microsoft data center, located strategically throughout the world, houses a highly reliable complex of equipment that provides seamless connectivity to the Microsoft Online suite of services. This global network of geo-redundant data centers provides around the clock access to your business-critical collaboration services, and helps keep your data safe.

 With Microsoft Online Services, your IT staff retains control over the services offered to your end users. Microsoft Online Services work seamlessly with Microsoft Active Directory, so you can continue to manage user policies centrally and control which services are available via your existing users. A single administrative panel—with consoles for provisioning, usage, monitoring, and support—enables simple and centralized management. And your users can enjoy the convenience of a single sign-on to access all their hosted services.

Visit www.microsoft.com/online today for your free 30 day trial, or contact us for more information.

Start putting our IT resources to work for you!

Windows 7 Migration, Rethink the Desktop

Posted in: Application Delivery, C-Level, Communicate, Deskside, Virtualization, Words by thirdoctet on July 14, 2010 | No Comments

Citrix XenDesktop™, the leading desktop virtualization solution, gets your company to Windows® 7 faster at far less cost. By centralizing the control of desktops and apps in the datacenter you can roll out updates instantly across the enterprise. XenDesktop includes application virtualization for app compatibility and allows you to leverage your existing desktop and server infrastructure. The benefits of virtualization continue long after your company is up and running on Windows 7. Once you’re out of the costly, frequent refresh cycle, you’ll discover how easy and cost effective it is to keep your entire enterprise up-to-date.

Citrix XenDesktop 4 Wins InfoWorld 2010 Technology of the Year Award

Posted in: Application Delivery, C-Level, Deskside, Industry News, Virtualization, Words by thirdoctet on January 14, 2010 | No Comments

1/14/2010 » Santa Clara » Citrix Systems, Inc. (NASDAQ: CTXS) today announced that Citrix® XenDesktop™ 4 has been honored as an InfoWorld 2010 Technology of the Year Award winner. Selected by InfoWorld Test Center editors and reviewers, the annual awards identify the best and most innovative products on the IT landscape. Winners are drawn from all of the products tested during the past year, with the final selections made by InfoWorld’s Test Center staff. All products reviewed by the Test Center are eligible to win.
Read more…

Citrix Drives Mainstream Adoption of Desktop Virtualization with XenDesktop 4

Posted in: Application Delivery, C-Level, Deskside, Industry News, Virtualization, Words by thirdoctet on October 7, 2009 | No Comments

SANTA CLARA, CA » 10/6/2009 » Citrix Systems, Inc. (NASDAQ: CTXS), today announced Citrix® XenDesktop™ 4, a groundbreaking new product designed to make virtual desktops a mainstream reality for hundreds of millions of corporate employees for the first time ever. Unlike first-generation solutions that were applicable only to a narrow set of users, XenDesktop 4 with its new FlexCast™ delivery technology is the first product in the industry to support every major desktop virtualization model in a single, integrated solution – a breakthrough that enables improved ROI, simplified management and extends the benefits of virtualization to every employee in the enterprise. XenDesktop 4 further simplifies desktop computing by integrating all the capabilities of Citrix XenApp™, enabling customers to deliver on-demand applications to physical or virtual desktops as a seamless part of their overall desktop strategy. To ensure every user gets a high-definition experience at all times, XenDesktop 4 also includes significant enhancements to its industry-leading HDX™ technology. It also builds on the company’s 20-year partnership with Microsoft, simplifying the management of virtual desktops through Microsoft System Center, and adding multiple enhancements that further extend the value of Microsoft Windows and Windows Server platforms. In total, XenDesktop 4 adds more than 70 new features, significantly enhancing its performance, security and readiness for large, enterprise-wide deployments.

“2010 will be a watershed year for desktop virtualization, ushering in a new era that will revolutionize the way we work, live and play,” said Mark Templeton, president and CEO, Citrix Systems. “25 years ago, the personal computer turned the world upside down, radically improving individual productivity and communications. That world is about to change again. People today need to work in entirely new ways, powered by the connectivity of the internet, an explosion of new devices, and the limitless promise of the web. And they need to do it without being confined to ordinary desktops that are locked to an office, a device, or a network. Desktop virtualization has the power to make all this possible. That revolution begins here, today. And it starts with the new XenDesktop.” (see video message from Mark Templeton)

Read more…

Citrix XenDesktop 3 Enhances Multimedia Experience, Doubles Scalability and Adds Streamed Desktop Support

Posted in: Application Delivery, C-Level, Deskside, Industry News, Virtualization by thirdoctet on February 5, 2009 | No Comments

SANTA CLARA, CA » 2/4/2009 » Citrix Systems, Inc. (NASDAQ: CTXS), the global leader in application delivery infrastructure, today announced Citrix® XenDesktop™ 3, the newest release of its market-leading desktop virtualization solution. XenDesktop 3, a key component of the Citrix Delivery Center™ product family, incorporates several of the company’s new Citrix® HDX™ technologies (see separate announcement today), giving virtual desktop users a richer “high-definition” experience with enhanced support for multimedia, audio and video. XenDesktop 3 also dramatically improves scalability, hosting twice as many virtual desktops per server as previous versions. And with version 3, XenDesktop becomes the first product on the market to deliver Microsoft® Windows® desktops from a common set of centrally managed images that can be run either in the datacenter (hosted), or directly on a PC or thin client device (local). This new capability gives IT organizations far more flexibility, reducing desktop management costs by making efficient use of distributed processing power across both servers and end point devices.

HDX Brings “High-Definition Experience” to Hosted Virtual Desktops
Widespread adoption of desktop virtualization requires the ability to deliver a high-performance, personalized experience for hosted virtual desktops that is as good as an installed desktop on a local PC.  To enhance this experience, XenDesktop 3 adds the new Citrix HDX MediaStream technology, which accelerates multimedia performance by sending compressed streams to endpoints and playing them locally. XenDesktop 3 also incorporates Citrix HDX Plug-and-Play technology for transparent support of MP3 players, digital cameras, smart phones, scanners and other local devices, as well as Citrix HDX Broadcast technology for reliable, high-performance acceleration of virtual desktops and applications over any network, including high-latency and low-bandwidth environments.

Twice the Number of Hosted Virtual Desktops per Server
XenDesktop 3 includes several enhancements that dramatically improve virtual machine density and efficiency in the datacenter, allowing customers to host up to twice as many hosted virtual desktops per server as previous versions.  These new optimizations cut server acquisition costs in half and dramatically reduce ongoing management and power consumption costs, allowing significantly larger deployments than before at no additional cost.

Manage Centrally, Run in the Datacenter or at the End Point
With version 3, XenDesktop becomes the first solution on the market to deliver both hosted virtual desktops and local streamed desktops from a single image store, leveraging the same delivery infrastructure. Most virtual desktop infrastructure (VDI) solutions on the market offer only hosted virtual desktops, in which each desktop runs inside a virtual machine in the datacenter. Adding support for local streamed desktops lets XenDesktop administrators stream desktops from the same golden master images, and execute them locally on any network-connected endpoint capable of running a desktop operating system. This powerful combination adds significant flexibility and cost savings, allowing IT to centrally manage desktops for office workers and run them wherever it makes the most sense, leveraging the distributed processing power of both servers and endpoint devices.

Enhanced Profile Management and Smart Card Support
XenDesktop 3 also includes a variety of new features to support simpler management, easier user personalization and enhanced security. Most significant among these new features is fully integrated user profile management, making it far easier for IT to provide a consistent, personalized experience for each unique user every time they log in. Version 3 also includes broad support for smart card security authentication systems which are widely adopted throughout government, financial services and healthcare organizations.  XenDesktop not only enables this added level of security for gaining general access to the desktop environment, it also ensures that this information is seamlessly and transparently passed through to individual applications within each virtual desktop. Additional details regarding all the new XenDesktop 3 functionality can be found at http://www.citrix.com/xendesktop3.

“The release of XenDesktop 3 will accelerate virtual desktop adoption by driving down costs through centralized management and delivery. With HDX Technology, we are providing users a true high-definition experience for their desktops, addressing a critical requirement for broad user acceptance,” said Raj Dhingra, group vice president and general manager of the Desktop Delivery Group at Citrix. “Through these innovations, we are transforming the way desktops are delivered and managed, offering a secure, high-performance and personalized desktop for our enterprise customers.”  

“Microsoft and Citrix have been delivering value to desktop customers for more than 20 years. Our joint VDI offer provides customers with the best in class virtual desktop experience through Citrix XenDesktop 3; integrated management across existing physical and virtual desktops with Microsoft System Center; and cost-effective virtualization with Windows Server 2008 Hyper-V,” said Scott Woodgate, director, desktop virtualization, Microsoft.

Pricing and Availability
Citrix XenDesktop 3 will be generally available from authorized Citrix partners in February 2009, and from the Citrix website at http://www.citrix.com/xendesktop. Suggested retail pricing begins at $75 per concurrent user.

About Citrix
Citrix Systems, Inc. (NASDAQ:CTXS) is the global leader and the most trusted name in Application Delivery Infrastructure. More than 215,000 organizations worldwide rely on Citrix to deliver any application to users anywhere with the best performance, highest security and lowest cost. Citrix customers include 100 percent of the Fortune 100 companies and 99 percent of the Fortune Global 500, as well as hundreds of thousands of small businesses and prosumers. Citrix has approximately 8,000 partners in more than 100 countries. Annual revenue in 2008 was $1.6 billion.

For Citrix Investors
This release contains forward-looking statements which are made pursuant to the safe harbor provisions of Section 21E of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934.  The forward-looking statements in this release do not constitute guarantees of future performance.  Those statements involve a number of factors that could cause actual results to differ materially, including risks associated with revenue growth and recognition of revenue, products, their development and distribution, product demand and pipeline, economic and competitive factors, the Company’s key strategic relationships, acquisition and related integration risks as well as other risks detailed in the Company’s filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission. Citrix assumes no obligation to update any forward-looking information contained in this press release or with respect to the announcements described herein.

# # #
Citrix®, XenDesktop™, HDX™ and Citrix Delivery Center™ are trademarks of Citrix Systems, Inc. and/or one or more of its subsidiaries, and may be registered in the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office and in other countries. All other trademarks and registered trademarks are property of their respective owners.

Citrix XenApp 5 Breaks Performance, User Experience and Cost Barriers to Expand Application Virtualization Adoption

Posted in: Application Delivery, C-Level, Deskside, Industry News, Virtualization by thirdoctet on September 2, 2008 | No Comments

SANTA CLARA, CA. » 8/25/2008 » Citrix Systems, Inc. (NASDAQ: CTXS), the global leader in application delivery infrastructure, today announced Citrix® XenApp™ 5, the next generation of the world’s most widely-deployed application virtualization solution. The new release of Citrix’s flagship product breaks through performance and operating-cost barriers, making application start times up to 10 times faster, dramatically improving end-user experience and lowering application management costs by more than 25 percent over previous versions.¹  XenApp 5, when used alone or in conjunction with Citrix® XenDesktop™, now makes it even easier for customers to centralize applications in the datacenter and deliver them as an on-demand service to both physical or virtual desktops for either online or offline usage – an approach that improves security, enhances user productivity and can save millions of dollars over traditional methods of installing and managing applications.

“XenApp 5 broadens the horizon of the end-user experience and accessibility by delivering an end-to-end virtualization solution that addresses the needs of both local and hosted applications,” said Mark Bowker, analyst, Enterprise Strategy Group. “In addition, XenApp 5 is giving new and existing customers a welcome boost in performance at an attractive price-point, two highly sought-after requirements for companies investing in strategic technologies in today’s economy.”

A key component of the Citrix Delivery Center™ product family, XenApp combined with Citrix XenDesktop and Citrix® XenServer™, creates an end-to-end virtualization solution that spans servers, applications and desktops. The new XenApp 5 release is being featured on September 9, 2008 as part of a global, online launch event called, Citrix Delivery Center Live!  This virtual event is the first in a series that will take place in the second half of 2008 highlighting the entire Citrix Delivery Center product family. This debut event features presentations, chat sessions and online demos from Citrix, as well as participation from key partners such as Microsoft and Intel.

Application Virtualization Cuts Cost of Application Management in Half
Windows-based applications continue to represent the majority of applications managed by IT today. Unfortunately, traditional methods of installing, patching, updating, managing and removing these applications on every desktop can be extremely complex and costly with today’s rapidly changing business environment and user requirements. As a result, IT costs continue to climb, business needs are left unmet and user experience and productivity suffer.

To thrive in today’s volatile business environment, organizations need a better, more flexible approach for delivering these applications across a diverse and rapidly changing user base. For more than 200,000 customers and 100 million end users around the world, centralizing applications in the datacenter and delivering them as an on-demand service to end users via Citrix XenApp has proven to be the answer.  In fact, in a recent study, Gartner found that the total cost of ownership of a server-based computing deployment used to deliver all applications to users is around 50 percent lower than that of an unmanaged desktop deployment.²

Delivering a “Better-than-Installed” Experience
With the release of XenApp 5, Citrix is raising the bar once again with significant new improvements to performance, user experience and cost savings. With version 5, Citrix has improved local application start-up time by up to 10 times, enabled IT to prioritize users and applications for maximum performance and dramatically enhanced ease-of-use for end users. In addition, XenApp 5 reduces the cost of application preparation and ongoing maintenance by more than 25 percent and cuts support costs by making it easy for IT to proactively detect and prevent potential performance issues even before they occur. In total, XenApp 5 includes more than 50 new major enhancements that come together to deliver an experience that is unequivocally “better-than-installed” for both end users and IT.

Delivering Applications to Virtual and Physical Desktops
XenApp 5 is the best way to deliver applications to both physical and virtual desktops and is a key component of the Citrix desktop delivery solution, XenDesktop. Using XenApp to deliver applications into virtual desktops, in fact, has been proven to cut down server infrastructure costs by an additional 50 percent³, further improving datacenter efficiency and green computing initiatives.

“The introduction of XenApp 5 represents an important step in the continued innovation of Citrix flagship product. With this latest release, Citrix is building upon the legacy that began almost 20 years ago,” said Gordon Payne, senior vice president and general manager, Delivery Systems Division, Citrix Systems. “XenApp is a cornerstone of our Citrix Delivery Center product family and allows our customers to move beyond merely deploying applications to delivering them to users in a flexible, cost-effective, scalable manner.”

Enabling a Smooth Transition to Microsoft Windows Server 2008
XenApp 5, which runs on the Microsoft Windows Server platform, leverages all the enhancements in Windows Server 2008 and fully supports Windows Server 2003. This enables existing Windows Server 2003 customers to immediately deploy Windows Server 2008 into their existing XenApp environments in any mix.

“Microsoft and Citrix share a common vision around application delivery,” said Chandra Shekaran, general manager of presentation and hosted desktop virtualization at Microsoft Corp.  “With XenApp 5, Citrix is once again extending the core platform capabilities of Windows Server 2008 while delivering a leading virtualization solution compatible with the Hyper-V role.  XenApp 5 can help provide better user performance and cost savings to our joint customers who are turning to Microsoft and Citrix for their VDI and remote computing projects.”

Pricing and Availability
XenApp 5 will be available September 10, 2008. For North America, suggested retail pricing is per concurrent user (CCU) and includes one year of Subscription Advantage:

• Advanced Edition – US $350
• Enterprise Edition – US $450
• Platinum Edition – US $600

Current customers with Subscription Advantage can upgrade at no additional charge. Standalone pricing for client-side application streaming and virtualization begins as low as $60 per CCU. For more information on XenApp, visit www.citrix.com/xenapp.
Training and Certification
New instructor-led and e-Learning training courses will be available to help end-users and partners maximize their use of XenApp 5. These training offerings include skills updates as well as full product training. In addition, a new CCA (Citrix Certified Administrator) is being developed to support the product. The new courses and certification are expected to be available upon product release. For more information and updates, please visit the Citrix Education website at www.citrixeducation.com.

About Citrix
Citrix Systems, Inc. (NASDAQ:CTXS) is the global leader and the most trusted name in Application Delivery Infrastructure. More than 215,000 organizations worldwide rely on Citrix to deliver any application to users anywhere with the best performance, highest security and lowest cost. Citrix customers include 100 percent of the Fortune 100 companies and 99 percent of the Fortune Global 500, as well as hundreds of thousands of small businesses and prosumers. Citrix has approximately 8,000 partners in more than 100 countries. Annual revenue in 2007 was $1.4 billion.

VMware Launches ThinApp 4.0 to Run Virtually Any Application on Any Windows Operating System without Conflict

Posted in: Application Delivery, C-Level, Deskside, Virtualization by thirdoctet on June 10, 2008 | No Comments

VMware ThinApp Agentless Application Virtualization Enables “Package Once, Deploy Anywhere” Non-Disruptive Virtual Applications

PALO ALTO, Calif., June 10, 2008 — VMware, Inc. (NYSE: VMW), the global leader in virtualization solutions from the desktop to the datacenter, today announced the upcoming availability of VMware ThinApp 4, an application virtualization solution that lets customers run multiple versions of virtually any application on any Windows operating system without conflict. For example, users can run both Internet Explorer 6 and Internet Explorer 7 on the same operating system without disruption. 

ThinApp, based on Thinstall technology, the leading agentless application virtualization solution, requires no pre-installed software on physical or virtual PCs and no new deployment infrastructure or management tools.  ThinApp dramatically improves application packaging, delivery, and management by enabling plug-and-play applications using an enterprise’s existing systems and management tools.  ThinApp packages applications in familiar formats (.MSI or .EXE) that can plug into existing infrastructure for software license management, deployment, audit and compliance. 

ThinApp 4 introduces two revolutionary new features: Application Link and Application Sync, which enable two virtualized applications to communicate with each other and remote virtual applications to be updated.  These features are important for easier management of the virtual applications. ThinApp extends VMware’s industry-leading desktop virtualization product family to enable management solutions for both desktops and applications.

Traditional application packaging and delivery tools are fraught with application and operating system conflicts, which lead to a “brittle” desktop environment. ThinApp eliminates these conflicts and securely packages applications for delivery to physical and virtual desktops throughout the extended enterprise. The result is an application delivery solution which lets IT administrators define their technology roadmaps based on their business needs rather than being constrained by application limitations. 

Customers want application virtualization technologies that do not restrict applications to one presentation format or another, ThinApp enables the same virtual application to be streamed from a network, presented from a terminal server, delivered to USB stick (e.g., for a contract worker), or delivered through standard software delivery tools with little to no integration required.  ThinApp also helps IT administrators manage applications that do not run as well in shared-user environments such as Microsoft Terminal Server. By creating a separate instance with its own private sandbox, each application runs in the context of each user session without having to be modified; if a user “breaks” the application, other users are not impacted.

“Application packaging, testing and delivery continues to be one of the biggest drivers of desktop management costs and a barrier to compliance and security,” said Jeff Jennings, vice president of desktop products and solutions for VMware. “With VMware ThinApp, customers can decouple applications from the underlying OS, which makes their application environments more agile and flexible while maintaining control over their desktops.”

Rolling out new applications, desktops, or operating systems brings with it the challenges and complexity of managing IT change.  This disruption puts the business at risk, as employee productivity can suffer when applications do not work.  In addition, the growing trend for mobility and the need for agility are often compromised by strict regulatory requirements.

“During the past two years, new client architectures have emerged that complement today’s PC configuration tools, improving efficiency of management and enabling user-provisioned client computing,” said Ronni Collville, vice president, Gartner. “Over the next 2 to 5 years over 50% of medium to large enterprises will adopt application virtualization – to save costs, complexity, and time to value throughout their desktop lifecycle. The ability of upcoming application virtualization technology to work with multiple PC configuration tools is critical to reducing the overall complexity and realization of true costs savings of packaging, testing and deployment of applications and desktops.” * 

VMware ThinApp 4.0 highlights include:

• Application Link (NEW) – Free-flowing communication between interdependent virtual applications.  Application Link allows interdependent applications to communicate with one another (such as Java, .Net, IE, Office) to eliminate conflicts, reduce application size, and maintain continuity and tracking of software licenses.
• Application Sync (NEW) – Internet-based updates of applications. Application Sync streams byte-level updates to users’ critical applications inside and outside the enterprise using HTTP/HTTPS, and on managed and non-managed PCs running virtualized applications.
• “Package once, deploy anywhere” with agentless application virtualization. ThinApp uses Thinstall technology, which pioneered agentless application virtualization allowing applications to be deployed on virtually any Windows OS across virtually any device (kiosks, PCs, laptops, thin clients, virtual desktops).
• Works with existing management tools to streamline costs and maintain compliance. ThinApp plugs into existing processes and desktop management tools to reduce the costs and complexity around managing the physical and virtual desktop.  According to Gartner**, “Virtualized applications can reduce the cost of testing, packaging and supporting an application by 60%.” 
• Conflict-free applications eliminate risks to business continuity. Applications are isolated from the underlying OS, eliminating costs of conflicting resources and allowing different versions of an application to run side by side (such as different versions of Internet Explorer).
• Regain control of the desktop. ThinApp, along with VMware’s desktop virtualization family of products (ACE, Fusion, Workstation, and Virtual Desktop Infrastructure) enables IT to segment their applications, operating systems and migration deployments to speed time to value while decreasing complexity of managing the desktop.

“VMware ThinApp allows our contracted employees working on foreign networks where interoperability and security concerns exist to safely access complex applications critical to their productivity,” said Robert Carter, senior IT engineer, Fluor Federal Services. “ThinApp is another example of the way VMware helps customers address real-world problems that save time, money, and manpower.  I am very excited to see how ThinApp will continue to evolve.”

“VMware’s approach to providing modular virtualization solutions that plug into existing Desktop Configuration Management tools enables customers to re-engineer their approach to migrations without disrupting their current processes,” said Scott Fulton, vice president, BMC Service Automation Product Line. “Both companies are committed to providing end-to-end solutions that make for seamless adoption of desktop virtualization.  Our demonstrated success in this area has already enabled mutual customers to streamline their efforts in user based provisioning, enhancing business service alignment and achieving greater operational efficiency.”

Pricing, Packaging and Availability:
The VMware ThinApp offering, which includes a copy of VMware Workstation and 50 client licenses, is priced at $5,000.  The client licenses are priced at $39 per endpoint. The ThinApp licenses are perpetual.  ThinApp will be available for purchase within 30 days through VMware’s network of distributors, resellers and OEMs.  All prices are VMware list prices.

Services and Support –VMware will offer 5×12 Gold and 24×7 Platinum support options for ThinApp.  VMware also offers several services to accelerate application virtualization adoption including ThinApp JumpStart, ThinApp Plan & Design, and ThinApp Application Packaging Framework.

For more information on VMware ThinApp, please visit: http://www.vmware.com/go/thinapp.

*Gartner Research Inc., “Strategic Planning for Application Virtualization”, Ronni Colville, Terrence Cosgrove, May 16, 2008
**Gartner Research Inc., “TCO of Traditional Software Distribution vs. Application Virtualization”, Brian Gammage, Mike Silver, Terrence Cosgrove, Mark Margevicius, April 16, 2008

About VMware
VMware (NYSE: VMW) is the global leader in virtualization solutions from the desktop to the datacenter.  Customers of all sizes rely on VMware to reduce capital and operating expenses, ensure business continuity, strengthen security and go green. With 2007 revenues of $1.3 billion, more than 100,000 customers and nearly 14,000 partners, VMware is one of the fastest growing public software companies.  VMware is headquartered in Palo Alto, California and on the web at www.vmware.com.

VMware is a registered trademark of VMware, Inc. in the United States and/or other jurisdictions. All other marks and names mentioned herein may be trademarks of their respective companies.

Download Microsoft Assessment and Planning

Posted in: Deskside, Hands on, Troubleshooting, Virtualization by thirdoctet on April 24, 2008 | No Comments

Care of Microsoft, The Microsoft® Assessment and Planning Solution Accelerator (MAP) makes it easy for you to assess your current IT infrastructure and determine the right Microsoft technologies for your IT needs.

MAP is a powerful inventory, assessment, and reporting tool that can securely run in small or large IT environments without requiring the installation of agent software on any computers or devices. The data and analysis provided by this Solution Accelerator can significantly simplify the planning process for migrating to Windows Vista®, Microsoft Office 2007, Windows Server® 2008, Microsoft Application Virtualization (formerly SoftGrid), and Windows Server virtualization technologies including Virtual Server 2005 R2 and Windows Server 2008 Hyper-V.

The Microsoft Assessment and Planning Solution Accelerator expands upon the assessment features included in the Windows Vista Hardware Assessment Solution Accelerator. These features include Windows Vista assessment, Microsoft Office 2007 assessment, and non-Windows device inventory, using the Simple Network Management Protocol (SNMP). Reports for these assessment scenarios are localized in French, German, Japanese, Korean, Brazilian Portuguese, and Spanish.

Download the Microsoft Assessment and Planning Solution Accelerator

Secure and Agentless Inventory

The Microsoft Assessment and Planning tool provides secure, agent-less and network-wide inventory that scales from small business to large enterprises. It collects and organizes system resources and device information from a single networked computer. Assessment tools often require users to first deploy software agents on all computers to be inventoried, but this tool does not. MAP uses technologies already available in your IT environment to perform inventory and assessments. These technologies include Windows Management Instrumentation (WMI), the Remote Registry Service, SNMP, Active Directory Domain Services, and the Computer Browser service. Assessments can be completed on the following Windows platforms:

• Windows Vista
• Windows XP® Professional
• Windows Server 2003™ or Windows Server 2003 R2
• Windows 2000 Professional or Windows 2000 Server
• Windows Server 2008

Comprehensive Data Analysis

The Microsoft Assessment and Planning Solution Accelerator performs a detailed analysis of hardware and device compatibility for migration to Windows Server 2008, Microsoft Office 2007, Microsoft Application Virtualization, and Windows Vista. The hardware assessment looks at the installed hardware and determines if migration is recommended. If it is not recommended then the reports tell you why it is not.

Device assessment looks at the devices installed on a computer and reports availability of drivers for those devices. Device assessment is provided for both Windows Server 2008 and Windows Vista migration scenarios.

For customers interested in server consolidation and virtualization through technologies such as Hyper-V or Virtual Server 2005 R2, this tool helps to gather performance metrics and generate server consolidation recommendations that identify the candidates for server virtualization and how the physical servers might be placed in a virtualized environment.

In-Depth Readiness Reporting

The Microsoft Assessment and Planning Solution Accelerator generates reports containing both summary and detailed assessment results for each migration scenario. The results are provided in both Microsoft Excel and Microsoft Word documents. Reports are generated for the following scenarios:

• Identification of currently installed Windows Client operating systems, their hardware, and recommendations for migration to Windows Vista.
• Identification of currently installed Windows Server operating systems, their hardware, and recommendations for migration to Windows Server 2008 (including a report detailing currently installed server roles).
• Identification of currently installed Microsoft Office software and recommendations for migration to Microsoft Office 2007.
• Detailed assessment and reporting of server utilization gathered using the Performance Metrics Wizard.
• Recommendations for server consolidation and virtual machine placement using Hyper-V or Virtual Server 2005 R2.
• Assessment of client machines, servers, and the technology environment for the implementation of Microsoft Application Virtualization (formerly SoftGrid).  
• Reporting of SNMP-enabled devices found in the environment during inventory.

Note   The Microsoft Assessment and Planning Solution Accelerator will generate localized reports for Windows Vista migration, Office 2007 migration, and non-Windows devices if the Display Language, configured on the computer generating the reports is set to German, French, Japanese, Korean, Spanish, and Portuguese.

The 20 most useful Microsoft sites for IT Professionals

Posted in: Communicate, Deskside by thirdoctet on April 4, 2008 | No Comments

Care of Networkworld.com, “Microsoft professionals have a lot to keep track of, and a lot of market noise to contend with. That’s why we’ve compiled this list of the 20 best places on the Web to help you find what you need. The list includes technology-specific sites, worthy bloggers and safe resources to help you pass your next Microsoft cert or training course. Plus we’ll reveal places for trustworthy free Microsoft software and the best sites to help you stay on top of the voluminous amount of news churned out by, and about, the folks in Redmond.”

Discover these sites at the original article.