High Demand For AppSense Training Courses Leads ADDITIONAL DATES ANNOUNCED!

Due to increased demand for AppSense Specialist Training Courses, I am pleased to announce that as part of our continued support for the User Virtualization Community, AppSense have created additional course dates to try to accommodate all of the booking enquiries.

For those unaware of the AppSense Education, Training and Certifications; The AppSense Education Service course offerings include real world scenarios and the hands-on instruction required to implement and maintain a Virtual User Infrastructure (VUI) solution. The AppSense Certified Professional (ACP), AppSense Certified Specialist (ACS) and AppSense Certified Expert (ACE) certifications provide knowledge and skill validation from the internationally recognized leader in UV technologies.

The additional dates are for the AppSense Certified Specialist course which two-day course is a follow on from the AppSense Certified Professional level and provides in-depth training on advanced concepts, configurations, troubleshooting and detailing monitoring & reporting.  The course includes the following modules:

Module 1 – Installing AppSense Management Center & AppSense Environment Manager
Module 2 – AppSense Environment Manager Components
Module 3 – AppSense Environment Manager Policy
Module 4 – AppSense Environment Manager Personalization
Module 5 – Troubleshooting & Debugging

These new additional dates and locations are:

17th – 18th May 2011
09:00hrs - 16:30hrs
Reading
UK

1st – 2nd June 2011
09:00hrs - 16:30hrs
Warrington
UK

28th – 29th June 2011
09:00hrs - 16:30hrs
Reading
UK

Places are limited on this popular course, so please secure your space as soon as possible if you wish to attend. 

To learn more and/or confirm you place: please email educationservices@appsense.com or telephone +44 (0) 1928 793 532

To learn more about the AppSense Professional Services and Education courses available, please visit the AppSense Education Services webpages here

Many thanks.

Cheers!
Gaz

AppSense Names Vice Presidents of Marketing and Sales for United States

As part of our continued growth, AppSense is proud to announce the appointment of two enterprise software experts; Michael Nicosia - Vice President of Sales, United States and David Burton Vice – President of Marketing, United States.

This comes shortly off the back of other notable names joining AppSense recently, to name just a few of the recent additions:

Doug Lane – Director of Product Marketing, United States 
Dr. Benny Tritsch - Technical Director, DACH
Stale Akersveen - Sales Manager, Nordics 
Edwin Rombeek - Sales Manager, BeNeLux
Richard Jackson – Vice President of Channel, Western United States
Stuart Noad - Director of Marketing, EMEA
Helen Major – Channel Marketing Manager

 Darron Antil, CEO, AppSense comments:
“As AppSense continues its record growth in terms of employee recruitment, customer wins and new revenue, we are pleased to have David and Michael joining our team.  Both have extensive experience in the enterprise software industry and past success in introducing and selling products to the market. U.S. marketing and sales are key priorities for AppSense and we are confident David and Michael will be valued additions to help drive our continued expansion.”

 A full copy of the press release with further information on the appointments and expansion can be found on AppSense.com here

Welcome aboard!

Cheers

Gaz

Ovum Webinar – Understanding the Role of AppSense User Virtualization in ANY Desktop Strategy

Some of you may already be aware that Ovum, an independent industry analyst firm, recently published a Technology Audit on AppSense  User Virtualization (available to download here).  In that paper, Ovum positions AppSense as the leading User Virtualization solution and recommends that all enterprise organisations could benefit from this technology with Roy Illsley, Principal Analyst, saying:

 ”Ovum considers that AppSense has developed a solution which enables the end-user organisation to deploy the type of desktop strategy that suits its requirements, rather than deploying a compromised, one-size-fits-all approach.”  In addition,  ”many organisations are currently assessing how they manage Windows migration, transferring from Windows XP to Windows 7, or from locally installed applications to virtualised applications such as Microsoft Application Virtualisation (App-V). This is a really hot topic at the moment, and the AppSense approach is a cost-effective and viable option.”

The paper goes on to explain, that as User Virtualization covers all desktops, not just a single type, it could well be bigger than VDI itself:

 “AppSense User Virtualisation will span all desktops, not just VDI (Virtual Desktop Infrastructure), meaning that the market potential for User Virtualisation covers physical desktops, virtual desktops, and server-hosted shared desktops. Based on current AppSense growth, the User Virtualisation market could very well be bigger than the VDI market.”

So at this point you may be thinking, Virtualization bigger than VDI?!

The answer is yes.  User Virtualization helps with major desktop projects across physical, virtual and cloud hosted platforms - this is one of the main drivers behind the record growth AppSense are experiencing leading to being ranked 12th in list of fastest growing profits – detailed in one of my previous blogs -  The Sunday Times Profit Track 100 – AppSense Ranked 12th Firm With Fastest Growing Profits )

Anyways – back to the webinar!. 

Moving forward, in addition to the paper, Ovum are kindly hosting a webinar to learn how ‘The Role of User Virtualization in any Desktop Strategy’ can help you move from a device centric to a user centric computing model.

Agenda:
Thursday 12 May 2011 – 14.00 BST
14.00 – 14.10 Welcome & Introduction: Roy Illsley, Principal Analyst, Ovum inc Butler Group
14.10 – 14.20 How user virtualisation can help: Roy Illsley
14.20 – 14.35 Case study of a deployment, what went right, the benefits, and the learning’s
14.35 – 14.50 How AppSense can help – solutions and some more detailed info on the what it is and the technologies it works with: AppSense
14.50 – 15.00 Questions and Answers
15.00 Close

Overview:
For many organizations the term server hosted desktops (SHDs) or virtual desktop infrastructure (VDI) is synonymous with any current desktop strategy, which is in reality replacing the PC with a virtual equivalent. However, Ovum considers this focused approach as an over simplification of the future of any desktop strategy. In fact even the term desktop is becoming an anathema, as most users will not access corporate services from a traditional desktop PC or even a corporate owned or mobile device.

This webcast will consider the re-positioning of IT thinking about the desktop, which Ovum believes is move towards a user-centric position, rather than the device-centric position we take today. By taking this user-centric position, IT are able to make decisions about how corporate assets such as applications and desktops are delivered; even introduce corporate and personal accessing devices into the organization, without disrupting the user experience. The user-centric view requires a ‘universal user manager’ to provide a seamless and secure user experience.

User virtualization is that universal manager; it enables a multi-technology solution to delivering the ‘desktop’, while also turning the concept of a user-centric approach into a reality. The approach is simple: ‘decouple’ the user from the desktop, ‘manage’ the user independent of the desktop, ‘deploy’ the user personality back into the desktop on-demand. The result? An environment where users receive a seamless, personal and compliant working experience, regardless of platform, delivery mechanism or accessing device.

More agile, lower cost IT management, with thousands of satisfied users…..sounds too good to be true?

In this webinar you will learn:

• What user virtualization is, and how it can be used in any desktop strategy, and why the user-centric approach represents the future direction of any desktop strategy.
• Hear from an end-user on their experiences of using user virtualization and the positive impact it has had on their desktop migration and management projects.
• Learn from the industry’s leading vendor on user virtualization about how it takes a technology agnostic approach to delivering a universal desktop strategy.

You can register for the webinar here!

Look forward to seeing you there!

Cheers!
Gaz

Virtualization Review: The Many Faces of Desktop Virtualization

Simon Rust, VP of Technology, AppSense (Twitter @SimonARust ) has posted a very interesting article on his VirtualizationReview blog – The Many Faces of Desktop Virtualization.  In this article Simon describes some of the many technologies used to ‘Virtualize a Desktop’ and how these differ from ‘VDI’

Topics include:

• Operating System Provisioning
• Remote Desktop Services
• Client Hypervisors
• Client-side Hosted Virtual Desktops
• Application Virtualization

You can read the article in full on VirtualizationReview.com here

Cheers!
Gaz

The Sunday Times Profit Track 100 – AppSense Ranked 12th Firm With Fastest Growing Profits

The Sunday Times, a leading British Sunday Broadsheet Newspaper, has published a report on ‘Britain’s private firms with the fastest growing profits’ and places AppSense in 12th place!

Taken from the report ”This year’s Sunday Times PwC Profit Track 100, which measures companies’ profit growth over their last three financial years, paints a picture of many of Britain’s best-performing private firms on either side of the recession.  The 12th annual list of growth stars, compiled by Oxford-based research and networking events company Fast Track, unveils the well-known names and emerging ventures that have driven growth through the downturn.”

The Profit Track 100 lists AppSense as the 12th fastest growing profit privately held firm in Britain, an amazing proof point of the need for user virtualization in today’s computing environment and further validates AppSense leadership in the market.

“12th – AppSense – 109.61% growth.  If people can access their software and personal desktop both in the office and outside via a mobile device, their firm may have ‘User Virtualization’ software developed by this Warrington company.  Five years ago Chairman Charlie Sharland moved the business into this field from security software development and it is now one of the market leaders.  Clients include Credit Suisse, Deutsche Bank, Motorola and Unilever.  Helped by growth in America, profits have risen 110% a year, from £759,000 in 2007 to £7 million profit in 2010.“

2011 has seen further growth over 2010 AppSense figures, with each quarter being a bigger, record-breaking quarter than the one before.. could AppSense take the Number 1 spot in next year’s report?!  fingers crossed! :)

 A full copy of the report can be downloaded here

 A BIG thank you to all AppSense partners, customers and the community helping drive the technology and growth – looking forward to a great future working with you all!

Cheers!
Gaz

PubForum 2011 – Great Event, Agenda Released – AppSense has 2 sessions

AppSense are proud to once again be sponsoring the annual PubForum event, an independent end to end virtualization conference.  PubForum aims to deliver deep-dive technical, non-commercial Microsoft RDS, Citrix, Server/Desktop virtualization education.  The main objective is to bring the best virtualization experts together to exchange knowledge and to establish new connections. It is a weekend crammed with presentations, Master Classes and discussions delivered by Citrix Product Teams, independent freelancers and third-party vendors.

Time for a little history; PubForum first started in 2003 with just 4 people and after 15 successful events grown to a well-recognized event with over 120 attendees. So far, the ever growing event has taken place in cities such as Munich, London, Amsterdam, Brussels, Berlin, Frankfurt, Dublin, Paris, Munich, Nice and Lisbon.  This year, the dates and locations are:

DUBLIN – May 13 – 15, 2011 at the Hilton Dublin
ROME – November 11-13, 2011

As mentioned, AppSense are again supporting this community event are providing 2 technical sessions:

Friday, May 13th – 15:45 – 16:30
“AppSense Environment Manager 8.1: Defining User Virtualization” – by Kevin Stone – AppSense Product Manager

A brief introduction to User Virtualization and the role Environment Manager has played up to this point.  The session will discuss the new AppSense Environment Manager 8.1 product release, including:
        – New architecture
        – Modularization and its benefits
        – Policy Actions & Conditions: Focusing on the new features
        – Comparison to 8.0 architecture and why EM 8.1 is compelling

Saturday, May 14th – 11:00 – 14:00
AppSense – “AppSense Environment Manager 8.1: Technical Deep Dive” – by Kevin Stone – AppSense Product Manager* EM 8.1 architecture in detail

         – New driver, UV service and client components
            * How Personalization works
        – 3-tier architecture
        – Hooking and virtualizing
        – Working with other virtualization technologies
            * Product Demo, including
        – Personalization between OSes
        – Archiving and rollback

You can register for the event here

We very much look forward to seeing you there!

Cheers!

Gaz

Ovum Technology Audit – AppSense User Virtualisation Platform (Could be bigger than VDI!)

Ovum, an independent industry analyst firm, has produced a Technology Audit positioning AppSense as the market leader in the User Virtualisation sector. Ovum recommends that all enterprise organisations could benefit from AppSense’s technology and should conduct an initial assessment.

In the paper, Ovum detail how AppSense separates the user from the desktop, and stores and manages all user related information with their User Virtualisation Platform; this provides a managed user experience irrespective of the connection, desktop platform, delivery mechanism, location or device being used. The IT department’s role is then to provide invisible management and control.

Roy Illsley, principal analyst at Ovum, comments: “Ovum considers that AppSense has developed a solution which enables the end-user organisation to deploy the type of desktop strategy that suits its requirements, rather than deploying a compromised, one-size-fits-all approach.”

Ovum also recommended AppSense solutions as an excellent approach to any migration strategy. Illsley adds: “Many organisations are currently assessing how they manage Windows migration, transferring from Windows XP to Windows 7, or from locally installed applications to virtualised applications such as Microsoft Application Virtualisation (App-V). This is a really hot topic at the moment, and the AppSense approach is a cost-effective and viable option.”

The potential for User Virtualisation is strong with investment banks Morgan Stanley and Goldman Sachs estimating the market will be worth $2 billion by 2015. This potential was recently recognised when Goldman Sachs announced $70 million funding for AppSense in February 2011.

Illsley concludes: “AppSense User Virtualisation will span all desktops, not just VDI (Virtual Desktop Infrastructure), meaning that the market potential for User Virtualisation covers physical desktops, virtual desktops, and server-hosted shared desktops. Based on current AppSense growth, the User Virtualisation market could very well be bigger than the VDI market.”

You can download and read the technology audit here

Below are two take away highlights from the document, focusing on Ovum view on User Virtualization, and Ovum view on AppSense:

Thanks

Gaz

Citrix Webinar! – How AppSense User Virtualization adds value to Citrix XenDesktop & FlexCast

Citrix are hosting a webinar showing why they awarded AppSense as the Citrix Ready Solution of the Year by demonstrating how AppSense User Virtualization adds significant value to Citrix XenDesktop and FlexCast technology. 

“Citrix recommends the use of AppSense for advanced user personalization and desktop configuration requirements in enterprise environments. AppSense enables standard, componentized non-persistent virtual desktops to be personalized across a range of desktop and application delivery technologies and platforms.” (quote taken from the Citrix Ready  case study: AppSense – Leading User Virtualization Solution is Citrix Ready)

What will attendees learn/gain/benefit?
Through FlexCast technology, Citrix XenDesktop delivers corporate desktops and applications to all user types in the organisation. AppSense extends this by providing a fully personalised and configured desktop experience for all user types, which means that all user related information can be applied to any desktop, regardless of which Citrix FlexCast technology is used to deliver the desktop, or operating system being delivered. When considering the move to a new virtual Citrix XenDesktop environment, AppSense User Virtualization is proven to help simplify and reduce the time and cost of any Desktop Transformation project.

Time and Date:
The webinar is scheduled for 1500hrs - 1600hrs (BST) on Monday 16th May

You can learn more about the webinar and register your place on CitrixChannelTraining here

Look forward to seeing you there!

Gaz

AppSense Application Manager 8.2 is Now Available!

The IT team wants to lock everyone’s desktop down to reduce cost and complexity. End-users want the freedom and flexibility to personalize their environment. It’s corporate computing’s age-old tug of war. But thanks to AppSense Application Manager, the needs of IT and end-users no longer have to be at odds. With Application Manager, IT administrators can:

• Control what applications a user is allowed to run, even based on the context of the device.
• Tightly manage network access, even from within specific applications
• Elevate or restrict user administrator rights with surgical precision, allowing IT to be responsive to user needs without letting support costs spiral out of control.

Today, the flexibility and control AppSense User Virtualization offers to IT was even further extended with the release of AppSense Application Manager 8.2. Based on key customer and partner feedback and requests, this latest release brings enhancements to existing functionality and new control options. IT teams can now empower users to initiate ActiveX-based software installations in a controlled manner without granting full administrative rights. Best of all, a granular set of policy controls let IT set tight ground rules for which web-based software installations can be executed by users.

Prefer to keep it simple?
You can allow users to perform any web-based from a white-listed group of sites such as adobe.com or gotomeeting.com.

More of a conservative type and require granular controls?
In that case, you can lock down installation rights to specific applications on named websites, right down to specific versions and ActiveX control class IDs.

The enhanced policy management capabilities in Application Manager 8.2 can be as simple or granular as you need them to be. For many common applications, you can simply import one of our pre-defined policy templates to implement a rock-solid policy in minutes.

You can find more information about the new capabilities of AppSense Application Manager 8.2 on our “What’s New” page, and existing customers and partners can download the new version today via the myAppSense portal.