News

Hosting virtual desktops: Tips for a successful outcome

dr — 2011-08-03T08:00:00Z

"...for an organization that already has an established virtual server environment and the infrastructure in place to support it, expect hosted desktop virtualization deployment costs to fall somewhere in the ballpark of $800 to $1,600 per desktop."

To read the entire article by Robert L. Mitchell click here: Hosting virtual desktops: Tips for a successful outcome

"Only 5% of CIOs can authorise IT spending" Gartner says

dr — 2011-07-09T20:53:39Z

Financial executives hold the IT department reins, analyst firm finds, as CIOs make independent decisions on investment in only 5% of organisations

Most CIOs cannot authorize IT investments on their own, and instead require the approval of a chief financial officers (CFOs) according to a report released today by Gartner.

What does “post-PC” mean? Forrester Research forecast:

dr — 2011-05-23T11:58:12Z

It doesn’t mean that the PC is dead: Forrester Research forecasts that even in the US, a mature market, consumer laptop sales will grow year-over-year of 8% between 2010 and 2015, and desktop sales will decline only slightly. Even in 2015, when 82 million US consumers will own a tablet, more US consumers will own laptops (140 million).

IT Pros 'Concerned' About Windows 7 Migrations Issues--But Why?

dr — 2011-05-23T08:13:17Z

57 percent plan to have a company-wide rollout of Windows 7 by October, 2011. And 65 percent have already purchased Windows 7 licenses.
45 percent said difficulty migrating user profiles from one OS to the next is a major issue, while 43 percent stated knowing what permissions and applications need to be migrated is most difficult.
43 percent of respondents have serious concerns that they lack the proper tools to automate or aid in the process of operating system migration.

"....How about Zinstall XP7?" Migration Expert Zone bloggers ask.

To read the entire article click here

To view the survey's results click here

Visit the Zinstall booth at Interop Las Vegas 2011

dr — 2011-04-29T09:40:00Z

Zinstall will be exhibiting its products at Interop Las Vegas May 8-12th – the world’s leading business technology event.

Come visit our booth in the cloud computing zone at booth number 507. Download the Interop LV 2011 floor plan.

We will be announcing an exciting new product, and conducting in-person demonstrations of our top products such as Zinstall WinWin Cloud, Zinstall ZPOD and more.

Interop® drives the adoption of technology, providing knowledge and insight to help IT and corporate decision-makers achieve business success. Interop provides the forum for the most powerful innovations and solutions the industry has to offer. For more information about these events visit, www.interop.com.

"...With VDI... client-side hardware and software -- notably, Windows -- become relatively unimportant."

dr — 2011-04-03T11:30:00Z

"...With VDI, customers can create centrally managed, locked-down desktops that do exactly what customers need, and only that. With that, client-side hardware and software -- notably, Windows -- become relatively unimportant."

Continue reading this interesting analysis by Paul DeGroot, Principle consultant at Pica Communications.

Readers of this article also found interesting another article
by Paul DeGroot's "Windows 7 and Virtualization":

"...Users of applications incompatible with Windows 7 that will be hardest to remediate can be kept on Windows XP longer, then upgraded to new computers with Windows 7 to which two or three years of SA have been added. This will stretch the time frame for remediating their XP applications out until as far as 2016..."

Continue reading this article by Paul DeGroot, Principle consultant at Pica Communications.

VMware, Citrix VDI both fail enterprise POCs

dr — 2011-01-26T17:35:33Z

Jeff Moore, an IT Manager in financial services, tests VDI products from Citrix and VMware, and after seven months of piloting the latest versions, he finds that neither is enterprise-ready.

To continue reading this story click here

Gartner: Cloud Computing & Virtualization - Top CIO 2011 Wish Lists

dr — 2011-01-25T10:10:00Z

Gartner's recent CIO survey, which was conducted from September 2010 to December 2010, found that CIO's budget predictions for 2011 are flat globally. New IT models like cloud computing and virtualization will force CIOs to re-imagine IT and could lead to CIOs reducing costs and drive growth amid flattened budgets, according to Gartner...

Gartner said 3 percent of CIOs currently have the majority of their IT environments running in the cloud or on SaaS technologies, but over the next four years that is expected to jump to 43 percent.

"The resource realities indicated in the 2011 CIO Agenda Survey raise the urgency and importance of adopting new infrastructure and operations technologies, such as cloud services and virtualization", Mark McDonald, GVP, Gartner Executive Programs, said. "These technologies were selected by CIOs the most often and are the top-two technologies for 2011 and are well-suited for this budget reality, as they offer similar service levels at lower budget costs."

"Microsoft: All Windows 7 customers should consider desktop virtualization" - Zinstall is recommended by Computerworld for migration tasks

admin — 2010-12-23T19:00:00Z

Computerworld: "Microsoft is continuing its Windows 7 marketing push with a recommendation that all customers examine desktop virtualization before moving users to the new operating system."
Zinstall is mentioned among recommended alternatives for migration to Windows 7

Continue reading this Computerworld's article here

Windows 7 on 10 percent of all commercial desktops, 75 percent still run XP

admin — 2010-12-23T08:00:00Z

That was a figure echoed by Forrester Research, which yesterday released a report focused on Windows 7 commercial adoption. Only 7 percent of those surveyed by Forrester a year ago said they planned to deploy Windows 7 this year, yet 46 percent actually said they have begun or will begin deployments.

An additional 42 percent plan to deploy Windows 7 in more than 12 months, while 1 percent are considering alternatives such as Windows 8, Macintosh systems and PCs running Linux desktop distributions.

For now, Windows 7 accounts for 10 percent of all commercial desktops, the report noted. The large majority, 75 percent, still run Windows XP, while 7 percent are running Vista. The findings are based on a survey of 774 decisions makers in enterprises in North America and Europe.

Microsoft Press on Zinstall: "Troubleshooting Windows 7 Inside Out"

admin — 2010-12-06T08:05:00Z

A new Microsoft Press book, "Troubleshooting Windows 7 Inside Out", recommends Zinstall products as part of its suggested toolkit.

“The single biggest advantage of zPOD and Zinstall is continuity of productivity. Simply put, this means that, as long as there is a spare computer available that you can use, you will always be able to keep working.”

"Troubleshooting Windows 7 Inside Out" delivers hundreds of prevention tips, troubleshooting techniques, and recovery tools, with a companion ebook and additional content online. It is recommended both for non-te chnical Windows users and for IT support staff.

The book's author, Mike Halsey, is one of the leading experts on Windows, IT and computer support, and author of "Windows 7 Power User's Guide".

An excerpt of the book is available upon request.

"Troubleshooting Windows 7 Inside Out" is available for purchase here.

Dimensional Research survey reveals migration strategies of the mid-size IT organizations

admin — 2010-11-17T06:00:00Z

Six percent reported they are fully deployed on Windows 7, up from one percent in the January 2010 research;
55 percent indicated they would upgrade their desktop and laptop computers when deploying Windows 7;
Only 20 percent of survey respondents have deployed Office 2010 to some number of machines, and only four percent have rolled out Office 2010 fully;

The Dimensional Research survey also revealed that IT teams feel the Office 2010 migration is a large, complex and daunting project that they are not ready to embrace. The leading causes of concern revealed by the survey include training for the new ribbon interface, compatibility with current applications and also licensing.

Jon Brodkin, senior editor at Network World, presents Zinstall XP7

admin — 2010-11-02T07:00:00Z

Key features: As the name implies, Zinstall XP7 transfers programs, settings and files from Windows XP to Windows 7. The product allows usage of applications that are incompatible with Windows 7 and ensures that that no corrupt system files such as DLLs, registry entries or drivers are installed on the new machine.

Info-Tech survey: 54% said that application compatibility and testing is a major concern

dr — 2010-09-15T23:50:00Z

London-based IT research firm Info-Tech survey of 231 businesses worldwide: 79 per cent of the respondents intend to switch to Windows 7 by 2012. About 54 per cent of the respondents cited application compatibility and testing as a major concern.

Migration to Windows 7 May Cause Sticker Shock

dr — 2010-08-30T13:21:30Z

Stuart J. Johnston comments and analyzes the recent Gartner report - Read here