►Optimize the Desktop: Greater Security, Enhanced Productivity and Lowered Costs
used with permission from the Microsoft Small Business Center

Roger is a CIO at a midsized organization. He is planning his organization's migration to Windows 7, and discovering he has a lot of questions that weren't necessarily on the radar last time he deployed an operating system across his company. For instance, he is wondering:

► How do I keep my mobile users productive?
► Should I embrace cloud services?
► How do I manage costs?
► How do I keep my data safe and applications secure?
► Should we go with rich clients or thin clients?
► How do I take advantage of virtualization?
► Should employees bring their own PCs for work?

When it comes to his applications, his key challenges are managing the application lifecycle, providing access from anywhere, and knowing what the full scope of applications. For operating system and browser, he is thinking about his operating system migration, image management and access from anywhere.

Read more
 

You learn something every day
if you pay attention.

Ray LeBlond
 

►Just for Laughs

Windows® 7 presents both an opportunity and a challenge for enterprises and their IT organizations. After years of delayed investments and aging user desktop environments, the implementation of the latest Microsoft operating system will bring dramatic improvements in security, data protection, management, and end user experience. At the same time, the actual rollout of Windows 7, as the largest and most broad-based end-user initiative in many years, will illustrate the outdated models for provisioning and management—especially given the need to accomplish the migration with limited investment in a short time frame. Unless IT can simplify the adoption process, the enterprise faces potential long term disruptions to IT and end users alike.

Desktop virtualization with Citrix XenDesktop™ offers a better way forward. By using XenDesktop to virtualize both applications and desktops, and deliver them to users on demand, IT can enable a rapid, smooth Windows 7 rollout while leveraging existing investments in desktop infrastructure and ensuring that all user data, settings, and critical information is managed and backed up in real-time. In the end, migration costs will be reduced by up to 40 percent. Customers can estimate the ROI and payback period by inputting their key financial metrics using the XenDesktop ROI calculator.

Read more (PDF - 165KB)

More and more businesses are creating virtual workforces as a way to increase speed to market, improve customer service and accelerate business growth. It’s no wonder, as virtual workforces provide access to a broader labor pool, and have proven to reduce facility and labor cost, and to slash travel expenses. A virtual workforce can include workers from any department, role or status
distributed across remote and branch offices, remote locations (including mobile and teleworkers) and between enterprises, anywhere on the globe. The challenge for IT organizations is to find ways to protect corporate data and meet security obstacles while delivering desktops, applications, training, support and online collaboration tools to virtual workers—who often have high technology expectations. At the same time, IT must provide the same or better service levels and ease of use to users with high performance expectations to ensure high virtual worker productivity while not adding complexity or cost.

This paper provides a simple guide with a checklist that focuses on four key virtual workforce requirements: 1.) Productivity and performance – People need to be able to work efficiently, 2.) Collaboration – People need to work with others efficiently, 3.) Security – The business’s Intellectual Property needs to be secure and meet compliance policy, and 4.) Cost efficiency – The solution needs to lower IT costs and drive business costs down.

Read more (21 page PDF - 3.5MB)

It's a common scenario. You're working at your computer when all of a sudden, with no warning, the PC freezes. Nothing seems to be working. The screen goes dark. You may even be unlucky enough to see the dreaded blue screen informing you that a critical error has occurred and Windows® will be shut down.

You've just been the unfortunate victim of a system crash. If this happens to you, it's likely that you've recently added a new program, device, driver or application that your machine doesn't like, and this is its way of making its feelings known.

Sometimes, a simple reboot of the PC resolves the issue. But sometimes it doesn't. You reboot, Windows loads and the computer crashes again, or continues to behave weirdly. What can be done to end the recurring nightmare and return your computer to a more stable state?

Read more

►Business Continuity Tip

Strengthen your plan via testing.
Testing annually is the crux to creating and preserving a viable recovery plan. Test every aspect of your recovery plan, from internal and external communications to regaining power to rebuilding networks.

Take the insight gained during this exercise to make your plan stronger, so that when an event does occur your business will recover smoothly and as efficiently as possible.