BriForum Is Almost Here! AppSense Experts Session Listing…

If you are looking to deploy desktop or application virtualization as part of your future desktop strategy or are planning your Windows 7 migration, then you won’t want to miss BriForum in Chicago next week.  And if you are looking to deploy desktop or application virtualization with a personalized desktop experience, at a significantly reduced cost, that end-users will embrace while you have less to manage, then you won’t want to miss seeing the AppSense experts at BriForum.

AppSense are proud to embrace and support the desktop and application virtualization community, and once again will be attending BriForum as a Platinum Sponsor.

Come See AppSense Desktop Virtualization Experts at BriForum:

• Harry Labana, AppSense CTO (with host Brian Madden): “The Future of the Desktop“
• Jon Wallace, AppSense Technical Director, “Desktop Virtualization Isn’t Easy, User Virtualization Helps” & “Mandatory and Default User Profile Tuning“
• Dr. Benny Tritsch, AppSense Technology Director: “Lie to Me: Using Built-In Windows Systems Filter in Virtual Desktop” & “RDP, Remote FX, ICA/HDX: Removing Protocols Turned Inside Out v2.0“
• Michael Mills, AppSense Practice Principal (with Jon Wallace) “Desktop Virtualization Isn’t Easy, User Virtualization Helps“

You may have recently heard that AppSense has extended our position as world leaders in user virtualization with our latest release, AppSense Environment Manager 8.1 – stop by our booth to find out more!  in addition, come see us to learn how user virtualization:

• Simplifies virtual desktop and virtual application deployment
• Provides a consistent user experience, regardless of device
• Radically reduces the cost of desktop delivery & management

If you have not yet registered for BriForum, you can do so here.

Look forward to seeing you there!

Gaz

The 451 Group – Grooming itself for an IPO, AppSense flirts with many partners

As User Virtualization continues to play an increasingly important role in desktop strategy and AppSense are experiencing record growth, the 451 Group – a leading technology-industry and data company focused on the business of enterprise IT innovation – has published a Market Development report detailing AppSense continued success, growth and future plans; Grooming itself for an IPO, AppSense flirts with many partners.

The report covers, amongst other things:

• $70 million investment from Goldman Sachs for a minority share in AppSense
• Expanding the management team with the recruitment of world leading executives
• Cisco validation for new Virtual Experience Infrastructure
• User Virtualization is bigger than VDI; spanning physical desktops, remote desktop services and cloud and desktop virtualization
• User Virtualization is bigger than Profile Management; working across OS platforms, Application delivery mechanisms, 32 & 64-bit architectures, user rights management, dynamic policy, self-healing etc..

Other key points include:

• AppSense positioned as a platform player in its own right;
  • “User virtualization, in other words, is the extra layer of abstraction that allows OS and application virtualization to realize their true potential.”
• Leading Platform and Technology Vendors (such as Microsoft – Advocates User Virtualization for Windows 7 migration, and Citrix – AppSense for Desktop Transformation)  acknowledge AppSense User Virtualization as a key strategic component of desktop management, enabling  new virtual platforms to adopted in enterprise organization;
  • “So potent is AppSense’s value proposition that Citrix routinely calls it in to help with large deals, and Microsoft has promoted the company to Managed ISV Partner status, a category that fewer than 5% of Microsoft partners achieve.”

A fully copy of the report can be viewed here.

Further to The 451 Group Report, another leading analyst firm, Ovum, also published a report; User Virtualization Could Be Bigger Than VDI!

This further validates the requirement for User Virtualization solutions in enterprise environments and part of any Desktop Transformation project, and confirms AppSense world leadership position in the space.

 Happy reading, hope you enjoy.

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

AppSense at the VMware and IDC Desktop Virtualisation Conference 2011

There was a wealth of information given at this event around User Virtualization from AppSense, IDC, VMware, Dell, Customer Case Studies and other supporting vendors. Attendee’s heard about the increasingly essential role that user virtualization is playing in their virtual desktop projects.

As the leading user virtualization solution provider to enterprise organizations and most frequently referred to user virtualization solution throughout the event, we would like to invite you to a follow up webinar that will re-cap on the main benefits of User Virtualization and demonstrate the Appsense User Virtualization technology solution.

We will cover;

• Cost reduction through desktop standardization
• Enabling more effective management of the user experience, regardless of delivery mechanism
• Accelerating the migration of users from a physical to a virtual desktop by managing all aspects of the user profile
• Enabling IT to use combinations of application and desktop delivery technologies, since the user experience is assured
• Acceleration of Windows 7 migration

Date:	Tuesday 8th March 2011
Time:	3:00 – 3:30pm GMT
Presenter:	Gareth Kitson, Senior Product Marketing Manager

Click here to secure your place  – https://www2.gotomeeting.com/register/969801674

If you missed the VMware and IDC Desktop Virtualisation Conference 2011, AppSense are hosting a follow-up post event webinar for anyone who wants to see the world leading user virtualization solution in action – the AppSense Virtual User Infrastructure.

Date:	Tuesday 8th March 2011
Time:	4:00 – 4:30pm GMT
Presenter:	Gareth Kitson, Senior Product Marketing Manager

Click here to secure your place  – https://www2.gotomeeting.com/register/161017322

Annual Technology Super Event ‘Varrow Madness’

Leading AppSense Partner Varrow is holding a themed event, focusing on updates from Citrix, VMware, AppSense and others all while watching live ‘March Madness’ College Basketball. 

The event is set to take place on Thursday, March 17, 2011  from 8:15 AM – 5:00 PM (Eastern Time) at the:

The Grandover
336-294-1800
1000 Club Road
Greensboro, North Carolina 27407
United States

 

Learn more and register here.

 

AppSense Sponsor IDC Desktop Virtualization Conference

AppSense are a Platinum sponsor at VMware and IDC’s Desktop Virtualisation Conference 2011, which is being held in London on the 15th February 2011. The conference will focus on giving delegates a clear insight into how to unravel what is available in the market today, how vendors are developing their technology offerings and what you can and should be doing now to ensure that you make the most of the opportunities available.

So, what is user virtualization?
AppSense is the world leading provider of User Virtualization solutions to enterprise organizations. User Virtualization manages the user component of the desktop to ensure a seamless, consistent, personalized and configured desktop across all delivery mechanism, platforms and accessing devices.  AppSense technology works with VMware to enable low-cost, standard desktop images to be delivered to employees as fully configured & personalized desktops. AppSense ensures all user types, from task worker to power user, experience the highest quality working experience both inside and outside of their virtual desktop.

AppSense technology is used in the largest environments in the world at companies such as HSBC, Barclays, RBS, JPMorgan Chase, Lowes, United Airlines, Wachovia and ESPN. And is chosen by leading System Integrators such as CSC, DELL, IBM, HP, Fujitsu and Accenture as part of their reference architects and/or offerings.

AppSense Presents…
Gareth Kitson, Senior Marketing Product Manager from AppSense will be discussing “User Virtualization: Ensuring a seamless user experience across all desktop, all devices, all locations” at 10:00-10:25am in the main conference room. In addition, experts from IDC will make presentations on the status of desktop virtualization end-user requirements and future trends.  

Register Today!
As an end user you are entitled to a free place at the conference.

You can register at http://www.uk.idc.com/DV11 entering ‘AppSense Guest’ in the special promotional code box, thereby bypassing the payment process.

If you would like further information or to book an appointment with our on site sales team, please contact marketing@appsense.com.

 
We look forward to seeing you there!

Best Regards,

The AppSense Team

Website: http://www.appsense.com
Email: marketing@appsense.com
For all enquiries please call: +44 (0) 845 223 2100

AppSense – 2010 record growth and a new CEO to drive even more in 2011

Like 2009, and 2008 and the many years before it, 2010 was another great year for AppSense; resulting in another record growth in revenue, headcount, market share and profit.  AppSense finished 2010 with a 60% increase in revenue and 43% increase in headcount on 2009.

2010 saw user virtualization go from strength to strength, with analysts, vendors and customers all recognizing the need for enterprise management of the user component of the desktop and AppSense continued market leadership with the sale of 1.5million user licenses and multiple $million deals in the 12 month period alone.  With recommendations from the likes of Citrix, Microsoft and VMware, and being part of offerings by system integrators such as CSC, Dell, IBM, HP and Fujitsu, 2011 looks set to be even bigger.

Driving the continued growth in 2011 is the newly appointed CEO of AppSense, Darron Antill.  Darron was instrumental in our success in 2010 as COO, and as CEO in 2011, we expect more great things to be happening in the User Virtualization Market.

An official press release on the appointment of Darron Antill and 2010 success can be found on the AppSense news pages here.

Thanks to all our friends, partners, customers and employees who made 2010 a great year!  look forward to working with you all even more in 2011.

Cheers

Gaz

Virtualization Review: Why Myths Should Be Left To The Gods

Simon Rust, VP Technology, AppSense, has written a very interesting article as part of his series on Virtualization Review looking at some of the myths surrounding Desktop Virtualization and how in reality, when VDI is designed, implemented and managed correctly, these are in fact just myths and should not stop us from adopting desktop virtualization technologies.

In his article, Simon dispels the following 4 myths:

Myth 1: VDI is storage-heavy and therefore cost-heavy.

Myth 2: VDI is too hard.

Myth 3: Virtualization and the cloud are one and the same.

Myth 4: VDI is merely an extension of Server Based Computing (SBC).

You can read the article over on Virtualization Review here.

Hope you enjoy, and am keen to hear your thoughts.

Cheers

Gaz

451 Group Report: Cox Comm’s deploys VDI with AppSense over ‘Persona’ / Profile Management

In a recent post of mine, I highlighted an article Andrew Wood published discussing if ‘Persona’/Profile Management really is User Virtualization/User Environment Management by another name.

Andrew highlighted that the technology VMware recently acquired from RTO Software (Virtual Profiles), while good at reducing user logon times, does not provide enterprise scalable Personalization and Policy Management.  Instead, organizations need to consider a user virtualization solution to enable mass adoption of desktop virtualization technologies.

Coincidently, The 451 Group have just published a case study confirming exactly what Andrew covered, through the use of a real life VMware View customer that was unable to adopt VDI with only logon time / profile management technology from RTO Virtual Profiles (which will at some point be incorporated into VMware View)

Cox Communications is one of the largest telecoms in the US, with more than six million customers and 22,000 employees.  They started their VDI Proof of Concept back in 2008 but unfortunately the initial test users hated the non-persistent virtual desktops as every time they logged off, they lost all of their settings and IT staff would have to spend 20mins reconfiguring individual desktops. 

In a bid to resolve this issue, Cox investigated the use of profile management technology coupled with the non-persistent virtual desktops.  Individual persistent virtual desktops had already been discounted because storage costs & image management would prohibit scalability.  

In the first round, Cox trialled RTO Virtual Profiles, but found that while it may reduce logon times, it did not scale well.  Cox next tried AppSense user virtualization, and like for so many others, voila – it just worked.  All user specific information was virtualized and saved away from the non-persistent desktops and instead stored in the AppSense User Virtualization Infrastructure and would then reapply this to any desktop, regardless of how it is delivered to a user, across any OS or 32/64bit boundary.

This goes someway to prove, that while it is nice to reduce your logon times, it is more important to have your latest settings, data, applications and desktop configuration policies, regardless of how it is delivered – otherwise users simply reject the new virtual platform and physical desktops will remain a pain for many corporate IT environments.

Further to Andrew’s article, this also proves some of the comments made when VMware acquired RTO by the likes of:

Jon Wallace on InsideTheRegistry.com: The RTO Acquisiation – What Now For AppSense and RES Software?

 Brian Madden on BrianMadden.com: Confirmed: VMware buys everypart of RTO Software, except what the owe Citrix

Martin Ingram on this AppSense Community Blog: Congratulations to VMware and RTO Software

While it is good that VMware now have profile management technology, like Citrix with User Profile Manager, this shows that profile management technology is for reducing the pains associated with roaming profiles (which are more suited for use in RDS and XenApp environments, certainly not complex & dynamic virtual desktop environments) such as corruption and logon times.  It is not a user virtualization solution with enterprise scalable infrastructure, for enabling mass adoption of desktop virtualization within the enterprise.   AppSense are proud to continue operating as pioneers in the user virtualization space, with our technology chosen by enterprises as part of their desktop management projects globally…

A copy of The 451 Group report can be found here:  The 451 Group User Deployment Report – Cox Communications deploys VDI

Thanks

Gaz

Is Profile Management, really User Environment Management?!

Andrew Wood (Twitter @gilwood_cs) has written a very interesting article over on VirtualizationPractice.com, discussing whether ‘persona management’ (and ‘profile’ management) technology is ‘user environment management’ by another name?

Andrew details how profile management, which is what VMware acquired from RTO to form their Persona Management, addresses the issues associated with roaming profiles such as bloat and lengthy logon times.  However, Andrew then rightly explains that while logon times are important (and profile management only reduces logon times if logon time is caused by large profile, not, the processing of a complex logon script with lots of actions), there is much more to be considered when designing a virtual desktop environment – things such as being able to deliver setting across OS platforms and 32 to 64bit boundaries.  Something only certain 3^rd party specialist solutions can currently support.

You can read (and comment) on Andrew’s blog piece here: http://www.virtualizationpractice.com/blog/?p=4460

Thanks Andrew, great and useful information as always.

Gaz