Ravi Blogs about IT Topics

I went to Redmond, WA in late February to attend a meeting at the Microsoft Campus where they talked about the things that they are doing. Very rarely do I come out of a meeting thinking “This really was worth all the trouble”. And it was indeed a lot of trouble… I was delayed by a few hours going there (because of a mechanical problem in the plane) and I took a red-eye back (saving some money for the University)!!! I was pretty impressed by what I heard and saw there…

We have invited the Microsoft folks to talk to us and you are all invited to attend. I will briefly touch upon a few things that I am talking to ITS staff about pursuing further.

First thing is called the Windows Fundamentals for Legacy PCs.  As the name suggests, this is a way to extend the life of existing PCs by making them run a very thin version of Windows operating system and make them act like a thin client. They need remote desktop servers at the other end to serve the applications. As we struggle to support an ever increasing pool of desktop and laptop computers, anything that simplifies support is a welcome change. By centrally managing services and making these computers run them remotely, we significantly reduce the support cost. I understand that this is not for everyone, but we should look for opportunities and applicability…

The second thing, again along the theme of simplifying the support, is the Desktop Optimization Toolkit for Windows. One of the most exciting aspect of this is the Application Virtualization. Using dynamic streaming technologies,active directory and licensing, applications are sent to a sandbox area outside the operating system space on the client. When a client which is set up to do this requires a particular application, say Microsoft Word 2007, which has been virtualized, portions of software are streamed down to the client so the user can start using the software. other parts of the software are streamed as needed. Permissions and license controls and even revoking the application are all possible. So, if you want to remove a software after the semester ends, this is possible.

Since the application is downloaded, you don’t have to be connected always to the network to work on it. The next time you connect to the network, the client and server handshake to decide if there are updates that need to be downloaded. Someone from the school district of Northern Virginia spoke. They began managing the apps for 17,000 desktops spread across a wide region this way and their Helpdesk Calls related to the virtualized apps went down 30%.

We struggle with application rollout for the public labs as well as the faculty/staff desktops and laptops. It is especially severe for the labs at the beginning of the semester, where, several times applications need to be modified and the machines have to be reimaged. Under this model, you simply have to do it centrally and the next time someone accesses the application, the modified software will be streamed down. Similarly, if we want to roll out, say Office 2007, slowly, department by department, we can virtualize these apps and use Active Directory to control who gets the upgrade. I am really excited by this and would like to pursue this aggressively.

They presented Windows Live which is the parallel to Google Apps for Education. Very good collaboration and if you are used to Hotmail and are fond of Microsoft Office tools, then this will serve you well. I have a Live account and have played with it. Their Sharepoint services form the backend for collaboration. We did not pursue the Sharepoint software when we were looking for content management because of Mac support. But, it seems to be really powerful.

The other really exciting talk was on Unified Communications.  They are getting into the communications business also and by tying everything to Exchange, they are able to offer a really coherent platform for all communications. I have asked James and Vince to look at some of the software that can be tied into Exchange already, called the Office Communications Server. This ties really nicely into Outlook and their IM software called Live Messenger. For example, if I want to talk to someone quickly, I can IM them rather than send an email if they are available. There is a presence indicator that will tell me if the person is free (since it ties into Exchange calendaring, it knows if you are in a meeting!).

Unified Communication also ties into certain legacy phone switches. So, if we find that we can tie into our switch, voicemails can be seen in outlook and you can use your PC to dial a phone number and talk to others… Lots of exciting possibilities. I totally understand it is not for everyone!!!

Microsoft also talked about the various things they are doing in terms of Green Computing. They have appointed a Vice presidential level person (six months ago) and he and his team are involved in many of the software development to see how best to develop energy conscious software. I upgraded my laptop to Vista and I am really impressed with its power management.

So, though it was a 1 1/2 day meeting, it was packed with some really useful information for me and I got to see some of these things in action. It is very encouraging.

And no, they did not talk about Yahoo!!!