* Desktop management vendors anticipate problems IT shops will face when moving to Vista
Microsoft’s release of its Vista operating system has many desktop management vendors scrambling to add support, ease migration and optimize Vista deployments.
Part of the reason such vendors are coming out of the woodwork is the anticipated problems enterprise IT shops are going to face when moving to Vista. Everdream, a software-as-a-service desktop management vendor, shared some findings of its survey across 145,000 desktops within 1,000 installed customers’ networks.
Microsoft defined recommended requirements for “Pentium-ready PCs” as 1GB of RAM, 1 GHz processor, 40GB hard drive and 15GB free hard drive space. The results show that about 80% of machines did not meet at least one of Microsoft’s four criteria for optimal systems targeted for Vista upgrades — which seems to me a big opportunity for vendors like Everdream to start working with their customers on how to get Vista-ready.
The Vista news also stirred the pot when it came to desktop application virtualization capabilities. Client systems management vendors such as LANDesk and Altiris quickly followed Microsoft’s release with a few releases of their own. And the tools they are providing could smooth Vista migration, but also offer a few features that would make managing any desktop operating system easier.
For instance, Altiris’ Application Compatibility Suite is software that checks existing desktop applications against Vista to prevent clashes. The compatibility checks would help IT managers determine what needs to be done to ensure smooth operations when Vista does go live. But if incompatibilities exist, Altiris says the software can also opt to virtualize certain applications on the desktop to avoid clashing with the Vista operating system. The virtualization capabilities would remove the need to ensure all scripts and DLLs sync up within every homegrown or packaged application on the desktop in order to let Vista run smoothly.
For its part, LANDesk also upped its desktop management suite with application capabilities. The company announced it had entered into an OEM agreement with Thinstall, an application virtualization vendor, which would allow customers to create virtual applications with Thinstall technology and deploy them to client machines with LANDesk desktop management software. Like the Altiris option, this virtualization capability from LANDesk will reduce the need to fix every conflict to support various applications running on Vista.
Aside from smoother Vista deployments, desktop application virtualization also promises to give IT managers central management capabilities and more security across myriad client machines. It seems to me anything that makes managing many machines easier and smoothes major operating system upgrades is worth a look-see.
