SA Customers Rewarded with New 'Desktop Optimization' Bundle

Published: October 18, 2006

by Alex Woodie

Over the last couple of years, as Windows Vista and Windows Server "Longhorn" have run perpetually behind schedule, many large organizations that signed multi-year Software Assurance (SA) maintenance contracts with Microsoft have been wondering what they'll get. This week, Microsoft answered part of that question when it introduced the Desktop Optimization Bundle, a new bundle of tools designed to take the pain out of implementing and managing large Vista roll-outs. The bundle will be available only to SA customers, which will simultaneously reward existing customers and provide an incentive to future SA customers.

Four desktop optimization packs were unveiled yesterday, including the Microsoft SoftGrid, Microsoft Asset Inventory Services, Microsoft Advanced Group Policy Management, and the Microsoft Diagnostic and Recovery Toolset. Microsoft says they will be available to organizations with long-term Open Value, Select, Enterprise Agreement (EA), EA Subscription, and Campus and School contracts; customers can start ordering the bundle next January, at a cost of $10 per desktop.

The Microsoft SoftGrid is a new offering that would virtualize applications and allow them to run on multiple PCs, without being locally installed. Instead of traditional packaged software, the SoftGrid would run applications as networked services, which would simplify the deployment and ongoing management of the applications and desktops, and also minimize compatibility problems and help customer avoid "DLL Hell."

SoftGrid is based on technology Microsoft obtained in its acquisition of Softricity earlier this year, and will become available in early February. The other three products listed below will ship by the end of the second quarter of 2007, Microsoft says.

Microsoft's recent acquisition of DesktopStandard should prove fruitful with Advanced Group Policy Management, a new service designed to increases users control over Group Policy Objects (GPOs) in Active Directory.

The new Diagnostic and Recovery Toolset will make it easier for users to pinpoint the causes of PC troubles, recover lost data, and prevent future downtime with post-crash analysis, which sounds an awful lot like the products Microsoft obtained from Winternals in July.

Lastly, the new Asset Inventory Services is designed to analyze all programs on employee PCs, and provide the most current, accurate inventory, Microsoft says. This offering is based on technology Microsoft obtained in its AssetMetrix buy.

The Advanced Group Policy Management and Diagnostic and Recovery Toolset will function as native extensions to Microsoft's Group Policy Management Console, while Asset Inventory Services will work with Microsoft Systems Management Server.

Although it didn't develop all the technology behind the tools, the fact that Microsoft recognized good third-party tools when it saw them, and found a way to deliver them as a single unit shows that the company can innovate when it needs to.

Also, at $10 a desktop per year for all four products, the new bundle might be a deal for larger shops, that would probably be paying the original developers a bit more to assemble them separately. Customers who were already using tools from one of these vendors may get a discount from Microsoft, the vendor says.

Microsoft says it plans to add more products to its Desktop Optimization Bundle in the future.

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