How wonderful would it be to hear time after time,  and especially from our most demanding executives. “My corporate desktop experience is awesome. Thank you!!”.

Well, two weeks ago, Citrix raised the bar again with their XenDesktop 4 announcements. To see what all the buzz was about, I spent 6 minutes viewing the Most Watched Video on Citrix TV. Citrix TV – The New User Experience. Watching CNN, YouTube, 3D graphics and more.

No wonder that our clients who are using XD 3.5 or XenApp are asking for XD4 to be configured as soon as possible and are engaged in XenDesktop POC’s. Besides adding 50 plus technical enhancements to this new version, they also have a very compelling licensing upgrade model which is being explored by most of our clients.

Around 1996, I remember working on my DOS machine at the office and my Windows 95 machine at home. Like millions of of other users, we needed to understand why we could not get the same user experience at the office. Eventually the home user experience was adopted by the IT community and the gap was closed.

History is now repeating itself. Millions of us are doing really “kool” things at home. And the same end user demands are leading the way again to our corporate world . We just want to turn on any device (any where, any time, and any place) and with the addition of our corporate secure profile, see text, TV, video, music, photo’s, 3D graphics  and much more.

Our  IT corporate world is on the verge of closing the gap and  making our end user’s experience awesome, again!!

It‘s a great time to be in the thick of things and as always “If It’s Virtually Possible, We Do it!!

by Myron Bari – October 24, 2009 (mbari@ipm.com)

So from the last article,“I Stream”, “You Stream”, Let’s all Stream!!, we assume that your organization has 100 applications that need to be accessed by many users from their desktop and you are in charge of  designing the next desktop architecture (hosted,  server-based, physical desktop) or any combination of the above. We already streamed 85 applications since they were ”streamable”. It would seem that you would now have to “install” all of the remaining 15 applications on the base image.

But what happens if  out of the 15 remaining applications, 8 are used by all of the end users and the other 7 are used by only a handful of end users?

From a design standpoint, you would like to have as few applications on your base image (only install 8 to the base image) since these applications are used by most of your end users. For example – Microsoft Office suite, Adobe Acrobat, etc.

How can you keep your base image from being cluttered  with these other 7 applications and still provide access to them for those end users who need them? To the rescue Citrix has recently announced  XenApp FR2, a technology we can use for these 7 applications.

• VM hosted apps – this technology enables customers to host and deliver applications from centralized virtual machines running desktop operating systems for the fastest rollout of apps and 100% app compatibility.

So now your base desktop image remains lean and agile!!

Agile because the 85 applications are now,  in most cases, platform independent.Since we packaged the applications on XP, the same package can most likely be used to stream the application on Windows 7.

It‘s a great time to be in the thick of things and as always “If It’s Virtually Possible, We Do it!!

by Myron Bari – October 12, 2009 (mbari@ipm.com)

Being back two weeks from attending this year’s ILTA (International Legal Technology Association), I am still absorbing the wealth of knowledge I gained during the conference. I am very glad that I took the time to attend!!

There were lots of attendees, close to 1,000,  and a constant buzz – it was definitely an IT “legal industry event”.

The theme resonating throughout the conference was Deliver More with Less($)

I spent significant time attending the Executive sessions in order to better  understand the current thoughts of  C-Level executives and how they deal with their business challenges. What keeps them up at night? How do they deliver the best end-user experience in a cost effective manner without sacrificing QOS.

Several executive presentations that will stick in my mind for a long time are the messages delivered by Peter Lesser, Gene Viscelli & Anthony DeCerce, as well as, the one delivered by Lorey Hoffman, Paul Wittekind and Lance Rea. When referring to engaging with a partner, the comment, “I bet my job” , resonated in everyone’s ear. This comment depicted to me the the “out of box” thinking of such individuals. They discussed “innovation” vs. “invention” and the trust that they place in the companies they partner with to deliver outstanding QOS. The ability to reduce operational costs by 60%, while saving their firm $1.5 million, was just one of the few great milestones accomplished by these seasoned “innovators”.

Another key presentation focused on Virtual Technologies — one that is certainly dear to everyone,  whether they are part of the legal community or not. Technologies from Citrix/VMware/Microsoft  was on everyone’s agenda and strategic plan. The challenge is how to deliver to the end user the best possible experience to his or her end device (desktops, laptops, PDA’s, thin clients etc.) The presentations discussed the new Citrix’s XenDesktop, VMview and Microsoft AppV.  A few case studies discussed investment, business requirements and end goals. No discussion of a preference between the technologies was truly drilled down..

ILTA organized their sessions into competencies for the legal community: Executive, Business, Technology, Accounting. It was a pleasure being able to navigate through the different sessions as one focused on a certain trend or topic of interest. I gained the most out of attending the executive sessions which gave me a clear understanding of the message being transferred by C-Level Management.  Individuals at firms who’s purpose is to seek the advice and direction of their Trusted Advisors as well as peers and colleagues to come up with innovative ways to  better enhance their “end-users experience”.

I spent time looking at many technology (hardware/software) companies but focused on meeting with the legal applications software companies. From a strategy standpoint, I believe that it is incumbent upon Professional Services Organizations who focus in the legal community,  and are proud when it comes to making legal applications “fly” in their environments leveraging emerging technologies, (Citrix, EMC, Microsoft, RSA, VMware, etc.) that should partner with the companies all law firms use and rely on for their day to day business. It will enable both (PSO’s & the legal application vendors) to strengthen their focused by aligning and be familiar with each other’s strengths and use each other’s name when asked for a referral of “who do you recommend is the best for”.

A common term I overheard was BYOP (bring your own PC). I can have two, or more, environments on my PC – personal version where what I do is my business, all my traffic goes out to the internet – and a “secure & managed” corporate version which lets me run my corporate applications by just clicking an icon. At which point, I’m no longer tied or “chained” to a corporate policy as to what they believe is the best for me but let me be the judge of that as long as my personal and business lives don’t overlap.

The buzz I kept hearing everyone I spoke to is how to manage their desktop strategy and the compelling event now is the coming of Win7. How will I migrate my end users to Win7 ?, solve lots of the current issues with the current physical desktop model and “delight” the end user experience? I am confident that Jacques BenSimon’s, IPM’s CTO, forthcoming article, It’s A Jungle Out There, will help many clients crystallize and begin to document their customized desktop strategy and then “vigorously” test the new technology in a Pre-Production environment.

I’m grateful for been involved in the legal community and look forward to an exciting 2010!

by Avi Deutsch – September 11, 2009 (adeutsch@ipm.com)

Having been in the field of technology since the early 70’s, from my days @ NYU’s Courant School and then followed by 12 years @ Big Blue (IBM), it never fails to amuse me that many of my technology colleagues do not see themselves as end users. And the trend continues!!

Now why is that? Could it be that since technology is KEWL, that’s enough? Not if you are like me >> an end user!!!

A few weeks ago I was sitting with a large client of IPM, in a very fancy conference room, talking about a current project. In attendance was the Director of Operations, the CIO and the Chairman of the technology committee. The Chairman made sure that we understood that an end user’s perception of how IT was helping or hindering him or her from doing their job was of primary importance. “Slow application performance, choppy screen refreshes, long boot up times are not good. We may have the most sophisticated technology in the datacenter known to man, however,our end users would just like to be able to do their work; easily and consistently. I turn on my TV or my Blackberry, and my programs and applications appear and function , all the time!!”

IPM has been involved with end user perception for many years.  Most of our projects have to do with presenting applications to many end users on various desktop platforms. We call it – APPPPS – applications, perception, profiles, policies, provisioning and scripts.

As an end user, I want great corporate applications that I perceive as working very, very well. I am relying about our IT department to keep my profiles and policies consistent. Provision my desktop seamlessly and use scripts in the background to enhance my perception.

I believe that Datacenter projects should be geared towards my technology colleagues. I also believe that Application Delivery & Desktop projects must be geared towards end user perception.

So how do you measure end user perception? There are lots of sophisticated software & tools to measure latency, response time, etc which in most cases need to utilized. However, I have found that the first and last measure of end user perception is accomplished when we ASK the end user! I suggest that we find out what the aches and pains there are before the project begins and also after we have performed our technical magic.

If end users perceive that  they are happy with their application delivery & desktop experience, and of course get their work done,  I think we are adding significant value to their organization.

Hoping that my life as an end user, and yours, becomes like living on cloud 9

It‘s a great time to be in the thick of things and as always “If It’s Virtually Possible, We Do it!!

by Myron Bari – September 22, 2009 (mbari@ipm.com)

Syndicated from VMwareInfo.com:

If the Blogosphere was a campaign trail, then ‘The Thilla in California’ would have been the first primetime debate!  And Chris Wolf did a great Bob Schieffer job at moderating.

Citrix’s Simon Crosby and VMware’s Scott Drummonds recently participated in a 40 minute debate on their respective Hypervisor’s performance hosted by the Burton Group.  Like the televised Presidential debates of the past, I think this did little to sway people from either camp.  If you are a VMware fan, you will have been proud of Scott’s performance and if you were a Citrix fan, Simon did not disappoint!   However, if you were an undecided, the debate just reinforced the fact that you need to look at each side on your own and see how their offerings apply to your particular situation.  As a technology and political debate geek, I did enjoy the back and forth between combatants defending and deflecting jabs and barbs by the other all while remaining very cordial and professional.  I do hope to see more of these considering the head to head nature of the technology offerings.

You can view the debate at Burton Group’s Website.

I’ll assume like the Ralph Nader campaign of 2008, Microsoft Hyper-V just wasn’t a serious enough contender at the time to warrant debate representation.

By Samara Lynn, ChannelWeb
6:00 PM EDT Fri. May. 09, 2008
From the May 09, 2008 issue of CRN

It’s shaping up to be a critical summer for Citrix Systems (NSDQ:CTXS), the 26-year-old company that has reinvented itself at least twice, suffered at least two near-death experiences and now sees untold opportunity before it. The Fort Lauderdale, Fla.-based company, which built its business on solutions that help extend the Windows server platform, is riding a wave of virtualization success that’s building throughout the IT industry. Citrix is doing so well now that rumors have begun to pop up that the likes of an IBM (NYSE:IBM) or a Cisco Systems (NSDQ:CSCO) may be about to make a move and acquire the company. (Citrix executives, for their part, won’t even talk about such speculation.)”Channel metrics are solid, early customer wins are beginning and we are on track,” Citrix CEO Mark Templeton told financial analysts in April, talking about his company’s earnings and future plans. Citrix is pushing its virtualization solutions harder than ever. With the just-released XenDesktop beta, the imminent release of the revamped XenApp, new partnerships with computer makers Hewlett-Packard (NYSE:HPQ) and Dell (NSDQ:Dell), Templeton may be holding a strong hand of cards.

But the very solution providers Citrix needs to recruit to compete with powerhouses like Microsoft and VMware say the company has very specific and necessary tasks to accomplish to win them over. Some of those are in Citrix’s control, others, however, may not be.

Many of the more than 24,000 Citrix VARs appear to be solidly behind their vendor partner.

“I think Citrix has been very strong in terms of working with the channel and keeping the channel going,” said Myron Bari, president and CEO of IPM, a New York-based Citrix Platinum partner. “We’re both learning from each other. The most important thing is that it’s always been a channel company. If they continue, I think the resellers of the world will migrate to it.”

Those other VARs that Citrix wants to recruit for its mission may not be as convinced that the vendor has both the needed technology and channel commitment to put it all together.

“Two things hold us back” from partnering with Citrix, said Ken Smith, president of Software Technology Concepts, Erie, Pa. “One: The guts of my (customers’) businesses revolve around ERP software. And they use the VMware platform in a lot of cases for what they are doing. The Microsoft (NSDQ:MSFT) virtual machine is now going to be part of the (Server 2008) operating system, so that makes it a big challenge.”

To overcome the obstacle of stiff competition, Smith said, Citrix needs to hit a home run on the second task: Bring to market game-changing technology. “Unless they come up with a paradigm shift, it’s going to be tough for us to align with them as vendors,” Smith said.

Citrix executives, though, exude confidence that they are doing exactly that. So the CRN Test Center decided to examine some of the new Citrix technology up close. What we found is some real promise, but also potential pitfalls.

Read full article on CRN magazine website