Kurt Shintaku's Blog

Guys, seriously… pay attention to this entry because this announcement in my mind is a really big deal:

Microsoft is announcing something we’re calling the "Microsoft Desktop Optimization Pack" and it’s a tremendous value.  I could reiterate what’s available here, but I’m not.  Instead I’m going to try to "net it out" for you.

1. COST:  The Desktop Optimization Pack is a packaged offering that costs $7-$10 per desktop license.  Price depends on volume.  And by the way, for comparison purposes, SoftGrid’s licensing alone used to be something like $200/desktop when Softricity sold it.
2. HOW TO GET IT:  It is ONLY AVAILABLE to customers with Enterprise Agreements (EA) or Desktop Software Assurance (SA).  And no, you can’t buy any part of it separately. 
3. NO VISTA REQUIRED:  Don’t worry.  Microsoft DOP does not require that you actually deploy Windows Vista and will work just fine with Windows 2000 or Windows XP.  It is put under the "Windows Vista" web site for marketing reasons to highlight what customers considering Software Assurance now to get the rights to Windows Vista Enterprise have in store for them. 

   (And as you’ll see, there’s a ton of value in DOP making anyone that turns down SA (WinVista) + DOP crazy in my mind.  I find it hard to believe there’s any significant company that wouldn’t see serious value in SA +DOP and at the pricing we’re doing it at, it’s just staggering.)

4. WHY?   We listened to a ton of feedback from our customers who need help with their desktop administration.  Really – we did.

   The DOP’s purpose is to make life better for the IT organization and eliminate difficult or repetitious pain generally associated with desktop operations.  In order to do this, we went out and acquired the top products in the marketplace for Windows environments that alleviates these pains. 

   It consists of 4 components from the companies we acquired:

• SoftGrid for Desktops:  The primary use for this technology is to allow applications to be deployed to desktops without affecting any existing applications already installed.  This is the desktop applicaiton packaging technology we got when we acquired Softricity.
• Policy Management Tools:  This will provide a testing ground for group policy before actual rules are deployed.  This is the end-to-end policy lifecycle technology for desktops we got when we acquired GPO Vault Enterprise from DesktopStandard.
• Desktop Recovery & Diganostics Tools:  IT users will be able to recover "dead" Windows installations without "reinstalling" and they’ll be able to recover deleted files or lost passwords in the event an employee leaves the company in a flash.  This is the technology we got when we acquired Winternals.
• Asset Inventory Services:  Customers will be able to tell how many desktops the "trial" version of Adobe Acrobat is installed on versus the number of desktops the FULL version of Adobe Acrobat is installed upon – normally a very difficult task.  It will provide this inventorying and counting service for over 430,000 applications – and growing.  This is the asset inventorying technology we got when we acquired AssetMetrix.

More on this at:
http://www.microsoft.com/windowsvista/getready/optimizeddesktop.mspx