Lakeside Software Ties Up With AppSense
AppSense, the New York-based provider of user virtualization technology, and Lakeside Software, the Bloomfield Hills-based provider of business intelligence software, Thursday announced a strategic partnership to provide a user virtualization assessment service that assists customers with the discovery and design phases of desktop transformation projects.
By pairing AppSense and Lakeside's flagship product, SysTrack, enterprises can move beyond assessment and planning into the implementation and operation of a user virtualization solution that helps reduce IT support costs, improve end user productivity and maintain low storage costs. Unlike other products on the market, AppSense and Lakeside are providing a comprehensive system that ensures enterprises are selecting the right products for their desktop environment.
"The rise of interest in the past year for user virtualization technology has been astounding and AppSense has been leading this market since the beginning," said Dan Salinas, vice president of business development at Lakeside Software. "By partnering with AppSense we are taking out the risk of a failed VDI project by allowing customers to manage the process from initial assessment through delivery, ensuring the use of the right VDI technology. Both companies understand the critical impact the user experience is having in the desktop environment and this partnership is recognizing this change from a technology-centric to a user-centric approach."
The User Virtualization Assessment service will work with an organization following a three-phase approach:
* Assist in defining end user "use cases" -- by using a combination of assessment questionnaires and third-party tools to gather information to define end user cases and user virtualization candidacy with the goal being to collect inventory, usage and performance data regarding desktop inventory, end user and application environments.
* Analyze the environment to determine readiness for a user virtualization rollout -- by applying project requirements to current environment and perform Gap Analysis, Application and User Analysis. Users will be grouped into "Use Cases" depending upon their requirements and each use case is assigned attributes to represent those requirements. Users are classified as excellent, fair and inappropriate candidates based upon many factors and an assessment report is provided to represent their candidacy.
* Provide a solution requirements and recommendations report - by creating a detailed summary report on an end user environment and provide recommendations on how best to move forward with a user virtualization deployment.
"As enterprises are beginning to understand that the one thing that remains constant in a desktop environment is the user and we are continually moving to an increasingly heterogeneous environment, the need to provide assessment tools for user virtualization is more important than ever," said Dmitry Shkliarevsky, head of professional services for the United States at AppSense. "With the use of an industry leading assessment tool like SysTrack, AppSense Professional Services will be able to provide customers with detailed intelligence on their current desktop landscape and user experience levels by displaying concrete metrics that can be presented to understand the opportunity for user virtualization within their enterprise."
Customers of both companies praised the tie-up.
"HP delivers Client Transformation solutions including virtualization and migrations to Windows 7 globally, providing a full spectrum of products and services," said Tom Norton, global practice director for Microsoft and Client Consulting Services at HP. "Solutions from Lakeside and AppSense are used extensively by our services organization in customer engagements. Understanding the current infrastructure, modeling the virtualized environment and architecting a consistent and flexible user experience is critical for current as well as next generation client environments. Having the two products more tightly integrated will allow enterprises to appropriately plan for the fully virtualized client, above the operating system and applications into the user experience."
Added M.J. Couldridge, director of workplace services strategy and sales at IBM: "AppSense and Lakeside Software are key partners for IBM's Smart Migration and Application Delivery solution. Assessment, user virtualization and monitoring are key elements of any Desktop Transformation, and by having a tightly integrated solution from AppSense and Lakeside Software integrated into our solution, customers will benefit from faster, smarter migrations to the new workplace and Windows 7."
AppSense is a global independent software provider and leading name in user virtualization systems. With the advent of myriad mobile devices, Windows 7, cloud computing, data privacy and ever-demanding employees, user virtualization allows you to unlock the potential of these new technologies while liberating your most valuable asset. AppSense technology is used around the world by companies such as JPMorgan Chase, Lowes, United Airlines, Wachovia and ESPN. AppSense has offices in New York and Santa Clara in the US, London and Manchester in the UK, and additional offices in Munich, Melbourne, Amsterdam, Paris and Oslo. For more information, visit www.appsense.com.
Lakeside Software's SysTrack is used in Windows 7 migration, VDI assessment and planning, user experience scoring, end-to-end monitoring and problem diagnostics. More at www.lakesidesoftware.com.
