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Hi, I’m Alex Heaton, Group Product Manager for Windows Intune at Microsoft. Today, I’m happy to share some news about Windows Intune, which is our forthcoming solution for PC management and security. Windows Intune brings together both Windows cloud services and software to keep PC’s well managed and up to date with the latest version of Windows. Windows Intune is the newest addition to Microsoft’s cloud family where — we’re using our experience with cloud services and IT infrastructure solutions like Windows Update to help customers and partners manage their PCs.

It is the first day of Microsoft’s Worldwide Partner Conference (WPC) and we have great news about how Windows Intune can create new opportunities for partners, as well as pricing and the details on the second public beta that we just opened today.

Second Windows Intune Public Beta

On April 19, Brandon LeBlanc announced the first public beta of Windows Intune, available to more than 1,000 customers and IT partners in the US, Canada, Mexico, and Puerto Rico. We saw a lot of excitement from partners and customers and the beta filled up very quickly.

Now we want to give more of you an opportunity to try Windows Intune. Today we are expanding the scope of the beta to 10,000 accounts and increasing the regions to the US, Canada, Mexico, Puerto Rico, France, Germany, Ireland, Spain, UK, and Italy.

The goal of this beta is to gather the feedback we need to ensure a quality final release—so we ask that you only sign up for this beta if you are able to test it on at least five PCs . If you just want to take a look, you can check out our videos on the Windows Intune site. To sign up for the beta or watch the videos, please visit the experience Windows Intune page.

Pricing

Today we are also announcing pricing for Windows Intune. Windows Intune will include the cloud management service with integrated antimalware (AV and antispyware) plus Windows 7 Enterprise upgrade rights all in a single subscription for $11 USD per PC, per month.

Businesses get a great deal with Windows Intune for several reasons. Because Windows Intune is built on a cloud service, customers and partners can realize the benefits of having a modern PC management and security system without the upfront software licenses, server hardware, and IT labor costs that are required to setup a traditional on-premise solutions

The value of upgrading to Windows 7 Enterprise alone can more than cover the costs of the subscription. According to recent report from IDC on the benefits of Windows 7, “small and medium-sized businesses with 250 or fewer PCs that are deploying Windows 7 are gaining more than happier users; they are lowering support costs, improving security, and making end users more productive.” Their research found that upgrading to Windows 7 can save $277 per year in IT labor, and $1,123 in end user labor.

Customers and partners also have the flexibility to choose if they want to use an all cloud or hybrid solution to manage their PCs. For an additional dollar per PC, per month, customers have the option to subscribe to the  the Microsoft Desktop Optimization Pack (MDOP), a collection of on-premise management tools that complete what Windows Intune can do from the cloud.  

More pricing and licensing details are included in the Windows Intune FAQ.

New feature for partners

Windows Intune is a tool that IT pros can buy and use directly, but we expect in many cases partners (IT solution providers) will use it to manage their customers’ PCs. We see this as a great opportunity for partners to use Windows Intune to boost their revenues through Windows Intune sales, using Windows Intune to provide managed service, and assisting customers with Windows 7 upgrades. Since Windows Intune works over the cloud, with no onsite infrastructure required, partners can help their customers from anywhere. We had many partners in the first beta who told us they wanted to use Windows Intune to manage several of their customers all at the same time. Based on their feedback, we’ve added a feature in this beta called the Multi-Account Console, which is designed to help partners manage multiple accounts through the single Web-based console.

From the account selection screen, partners will have an aggregate view of the environments they manage, so they can easily monitor the status and health of client PCs, including Agent Health, Alerts, Anti-Malware, and Updates. Partners can change the filter to view by health status, so customers in need of urgent assistance will rise to the top of the list. This addition makes the experience simple for partners to scale and will hopefully save them time, and ultimately money.

What Partners are Saying

We’re only wrapping up our first public beta, but we’re excited to hear from partners that based on what they’ve seen so far, they think Windows Intune is a powerful new tool that will help them work more effectively and expand their customer base.

One of the partners in our beta program, Christopher Foote, President of JCF Managed Solutions, told us:

“I save about 40% of the time I used to spend managing PC updates, thanks to Windows Intune. It frees me up to focus on developing more custom applications—and bring on more customers.”

Brian Britton, from Microload in London, sees opportunities for Windows Intune to grow his business:

“With the efficiency improvements that Windows Intune will enable, I think we could expand our customer base by at least 10-15 percent immediately.”

Partners and customers also see great opportunities with Windows 7 Enterprise and the upgrade rights that are included in Windows Intune.

Anders Grönlund, marketing and alliance manager of Enfo Zipper remarks:

“Knowing that they have rights to upgrade to Windows 7 on all Windows Intune-subscribed PCs provides an extra incentive for our customers to integrate Windows Intune into their IT environments, It accelerates their decision to make the move—which helps us grow our business faster while providing the best PC management and PC experience to our customers.”

And Ryan McDonnell, IT manager at Levick Strategic Communications says:

“Windows 7 Enterprise is a must-have system for us. Being able to manage one OS saves me time and this solution gives users more ways to control their desktops, perform daily tasks, and work more productively. What’s more, Windows Intune offers another way to upgrade to Windows 7 Enterprise. We’ve been waiting for an opportunity like this because we can now better protect and manage PCs while giving users the latest operating system.”

These are only a few examples of what our partners are saying. For more information on the partner opportunities with Windows Intune, visit the Windows Intune MPN page and check out other case studies from partners here.

Looking forward

Windows Intune will be generally available by early 2011 in all the countries included in this second public beta. Windows Intune will be more broadly available in select European and Latin American countries at launch. In the months following the official launch, we plan on delivering the service in select Asian countries.

As you try out the second public beta, we hope you’ll find that it’s a simple way to keep your PCs managed, secure and up-to-date with Windows 7. Just as we requested in the first beta, we want to hear feedback from customers and partners based on what they’ve seen and learn what they hope to see in Windows Intune to help their businesses and their customers.

Try the Windows Intune beta today and visit www.windowsintune.com to learn more about Windows Intune and experience the beta! We also have Windows Intune technical resources and a support forum on our Springboard Series on TechNet.

The Get On The Bus tour made it’s 10th and final stop in Atlanta.  We had people lining up for the sessions as early as 2:30 am, nearly 10 hours before registration opened!  We then drove 9 hours to New Orleans to the convention center where TechEd 2010 will be held this week.

We had an amazing tour. 2 Countries, 10 Cities and thousands of IT pros who came with questions and walked away with solutions around Windows 7, Office 2010 and MDOP. Thanks to everyone who came to see us. We met some amazing people and learned a lot about how you use our products everyday. It was an amazing experience for all of us. So thank you all to my co-workers who presented with me to all of you who attended.

Coming to TechEd? The bus we took across the US will be on the show floor in the Windows area for the full week. Make sure to stop by to check out the bus and say hi!

The bus tour is almost over with only one more city to go. The people in Charlotte were excited we made their city one of our stops and show them all the cool new tools and software. See what they had to say about Windows 7, MDOP and Office 2010.

The Get On The Bus tour reached historic Richmond, VA today. We had a great audience filled with lots of excitement and lots of questions around Windows, Office and MDOP. Take a peek and check out the event!

The Bus Tour gets to our nations capitol in Washington DC for two days of presentations on Windows 7, Office 2010 and MDOP. The crowd was great and the city is amazing. Check it out! For more on the Get On The Bus tour or to sign up for sessions in one of our remaining cities, check out the site here.

Yesterday, Microsoft’s Get On The Bus tour came to Philadelphia, PA. We got to see the sites, try some Cheesesteak sandwiches and meet with some amazing IT pros, We even got to meet the Mayor of Philadelphia, Michael Nutter.

It was a great stop with many more to come. If you in DC, Charlotte, Richmond, Raleigh or Atlanta, don’t miss this great opportunity to learn more about Windows 7, Office 2010, Med-V, App-V, Certification and MDOP and sign up for one of our Get On The Bus events today. Next stop, Washington DC.

Our third stop on the Get On The Bus Tour was New York City. With over 450 people registered, it was largest attended event to date. Check out what the people had to say about the tour, Windows 7, IT pro Certification,  Office 2010, Virtualization and get a sneak peek inside the Get On The Bus tour bus.

The Get On The Bus Tour visited Boston, MA yesterday. Here’s a peek at what you missed.

To join us in New York, Philly, DC or any of our other stops, make sure to visit the Get On The Bus site and find out how you can attend one of our Windows7/Office 2010 seminars for free.

We’ve been talking a lot lately about the value of desktop virtualization and how to get the biggest bang for your buck from it.

We certainly recognize that you have your work cut out for you – managing your technology infrastructure in a way that ensures the highest degree of security and compliance while also managing the proliferation of applications in your environment especially if users are able to download their own apps.

These factors and others are all contributing to the growing popularity of desktop virtualization. The challenge we realize is how to make sense out of this complex topic while distilling all the information available in a meaningful way. We also recognize it’s a broad term and there are different ways to think about it so it can quickly become overwhelming on where to start.

For today’s post I thought I would share some tips and considerations to help you build a successful desktop virtualization roadmap. The guidance builds upon the recent discussions we’ve had at the Microsoft Management Summit and the Desktop Virtualization Hour.

Brad Anderson, our corporate vice president for our management and services division, shared at MMS two core tenants of our desktop virtualization approach that I think are worthy of underscoring:

• Implement a desktop virtualization solution that gives you a comprehensive, consistent management experience and facilitates a centralized way to manage distributed and centralized desktops
• Determine a common way of integrating and leveraging all the different forms of virtualization – desktop virtualization should encompass application, hardware, VDI and session virtualization

We know each customer scenario is different whether you’re managing desktops for a multi-national, public company in a highly regulated industry, or you manage client services for a regional hospital, or you manage IT for a 50-person, private business– that’s why we take a desktop to datacenter view to address both the physical and virtual environment. Our goal is to help you take advantage of Microsoft desktop virtualization technology to support your business now and into the future.

So in this spirit, here are some key considerations to get the highest ROI from desktop virtualization:

• To Brad’s point determine a common way of integrating and leveraging all the different forms of virtualization including application, hardware, VDI and session virtualization. A great first step is to start at the application level. By virtualizing your applications, you can significantly decrease your test costs when migrating to Windows 7 and the process for adding new apps becomes much more simplified.
• Evaluate how to best take advantage of VDI to virtualize Windows; we think VDI is good for all organizations but not necessarily all users because the user experience and application performance is directly dependent on network connectivity. Additionally, we’ve seen evidence that VDI may represent higher costs than a PC environment for office workers based on some recent research on the TCO of VDI.

To help you evaluate the value of VDI within your environment, a few helpful takeaways from the study include:

• Overall, when compared in a well managed office worker environment, VDI is generally 9-11% more expensive than the corresponding PC environment.
• VDI reduces hardware costs by 32% but the addition of technology to the data center (e.g., storage, networking) increases software costs by 64%, cancelling any savings.
• VDI decreases helpdesk costs by reducing the effort required to troubleshoot desktops, but increases desktop engineering costs due to added expertise and more expensive virtualization resources to manage the desktop environment. Hence, IT operations costs for PC and VDI are almost identical.
• Users that move from a well-managed PC to VDI environment complained about a diminished user experience.
• As a result of these findings, we believe VDI is an innovative technology that can deliver significant value in specific use cases, such as for shift-based task workers and for contractors. However, for the office worker, the value driver is less clear and will not be based on TCO.

The last point I wanted to touch on is the concept of client hypervisor as an emerging trend related to desktop virtualization. This technology is still in the early stages of development within the market thus could be considered a part of a future roadmap of enterprise desktop solutions in specific scenarios.

As you evaluate a client hypervisor consider evaluating based on your user needs. In some cases it makes sense. For corporate users who need more than one work environment, or use two desktops today, a client hypervisor can help consolidate those two on one device, while still maintaining isolation between the environments. Some relevant scenarios include:

• Highly regulated environments, where isolation is required.
• Running a “personal workspace” where users can manage their personal applications and files, delivering more flexibility on a corporate laptop.
• And for development, test or demo purposes, where you need multiple workloads simultaneously.

On the down side, for other scenarios, where only one work environment is required, a client hypervisor can add complexity particularly as it requires premium hardware, with virtualization capabilities in the CPU and BIOS, usually additional RAM and management. The deployment also tends to be more demanding and can require additional management and patching to keep it up to date. This is because it’s installed beneath the OS and so standard software distribution mechanisms do not support this.

Remember that the hybrid environment of physical and virtual is a reality so it’s important to evaluate solutions that address your environment now and set you up for successful enterprise management in the future. This will help ensure you are well positioned to continue to realize ROI on existing investments while driving down TCO for the future. The combination of Windows 7, MDOP, System Center and Microsoft’s Desktop Virtualization offering as well as our collaboration with Citrix, provide desktop to datacenter solutions to meet your evolving business needs.

I hope these tips help. We always want to hear your feedback to ensure we provide you with the right set of solutions to take your desktop virtualization strategy to the next level.

To learn more about our desktop virtualization solutions, go here: http://www.microsoft.com/windows/enterprise/solutions/virtualization/default.aspx.

As the global economy begins to revive, financial institutions around the world are looking to their technology infrastructure to secure their data, decrease their expenses and grow their business. At two recent financial industry events, the Asian Banker Summit in Singapore and the Tower Group 2010 Annual Conference & Exhibition, the Microsoft team was talking with customers about how financial services companies can reduce their operating costs and improve productivity while remaining secure and compliant with government regulations with Windows 7 Enterprise.

Several Windows 7 financial services customers recently shared their deployment stories with us, and emphasized the advanced power management, lower TCO and utilization costs and improved performance they’re seeing.

Shinshan Bank, one of the largest multiservice financial institutions in the Republic of Korea, deployed Windows 7 to drive down operating costs, enhance security, and improve competitive performance. At the Asian Banker Summit 2010, Microsoft announced how the bank is leveraging security enhancements, such as AppLocker, BitLocker and BitLocker To Go, to provide Shinshan Bank with easier IT management and control. Kim Jangon, IT General Management Department from Shinhan Bank, says:

The financial industry is held to high standards for safeguarding customer information against theft or loss — a responsibility that Shinhan Bank makes a primary concern. In evaluating new operating systems, however, we also realized that we needed to strike the right balance between security and system performance to meet our employee productivity and customer service objectives. Windows 7 enables us to strike this balance.

AmericanWest Bank, a business and consumer bank in the Pacific Northwest, deployed Windows 7 to help improve security, system performance and user experience. Windows 7 features including AppLocker, BitLocker and BitLocker To Go provided the security enhancements American West needed while features like User Account Control helped enhance system performance and improve the user experience. To help mitigate any possible compatibility issues, American West Bank also leveraged Microsoft Desktop Optimization Pack (MDOP) to allow users to run a virtual instance of Windows XP on the Windows 7 desktop. Here’s what Robert Cardon, Network Administrator for AmericanWest Bank says:

We can reduce calls to the help desk by enabling users to troubleshoot on their own. For each call saved, that’s an addition 15 minutes our IT personnel can spend on more strategic tasks.

Piraeus Bank Group, financial service provider with offices and branches throughout Europe, Egypt, and the United States, upgraded to Windows 7 for enhanced security, greater flexibility for mobile workers, and better desktop management. Piraeus Bank also plans to deploy Windows Server 2008 R2 operating system to take advantage of the DirectAccess and BranchCache features in Windows 7, to help mobile and remote workers connect more quickly and securely to the bank’s corporate network. Piraeus Bank is considering introducing BitLocker Drive Encryption and BitLocker To Go technologies, which use full-volume encryption to help protect the data both on computers and portable storage devices. Because of the success they’ve realized, Piraeus Bank plans to upgrade all 5,000 of its desktop and portable computers to Windows 7 before the end of 2010. Here is what Haris Voutsas, Deputy IT Director from Piraeus Bank Group, says:

From what we’ve seen so far, we’re convinced that we’ll experience greater stability and fewer issues with Windows 7 than with any other operating system. We trust our banking business to run on it!

And here is what Nikos Petropoulos, IT Operations and Administrations Manager for Piraeus Bank Group, says:

Windows 7 has been 100 percent compatible. It’s the most compatible version of Windows yet—even with no changes to our hardware.

To learn more about how these and other financial institutions are benefiting from Windows 7, check out the Windows Enterprise site, or read more enterprise company case studies.