Last month, Gavriella Schuster discussed the features you will see in the Microsoft Desktop Optimization Pack (MDOP) 2009 R2 and today I’m pleased to announce its availability! Over on the MDOP Team blog, Ran Oelgiesser provided details about what you can expect with the latest release and today he shares some of the customer and partner feedback, so below I’ll just touch on the highlights.

If you’re not using MDOP, we recommend you take another look because it can provide immediate savings with little IT investment, especially when integrated into your Windows 7 plans. For example:

• By using Application Virtualization, you can optimize your Windows 7 deployment by reducing PC provisioning time, simplifying application delivery and update, and increasing productivity with user roaming
• You can enhance your Windows 7 manageability by addressing common system/application failures (with DEM), repairing unbootable PCs (with DaRT), and controlling Group Policy change (with AGPM).

If you are an MDOP customer, you can now download MDOP 2009 R2 through Microsoft Volume Licensing Site (MVLS).  If you want to evaluate MDOP 2009 R2, the MDOP software is available at MSDN and TechNet (in accordance with your MSDN or TechNet agreements, except for AIS).

Beyond MDOP 2009 R2, the MDOP roadmap includes:

1. Microsoft Enterprise Desktop Virtualization (MED-V) V 1.0 SP1 – This updated tool will support Windows 7 and enable enterprise deployment of virtual Windows XP environments to support incompatible applications. A Beta version of MED-V 1.0 SP1 will be available by the end of 2009 and final release is scheduled for the first quarter of calendar year 2010.
2. Asset Inventory Service (AIS) 2.0 – AIS 2.0 can track your existing assets to improve Windows 7 deployment planning and will have a series of enhancements that customers have requested: Enhanced hardware inventory, new Silverlight-based user interface, scale to 100,000 PCs, improved volume license reconciliation and ability to track virtual applications. The AIS 2.0 beta is now available (registration closes by October 24th) and the final release will be available in H2 CY2010.

Encouraging feedback

Already MDOP has been licensed for over 21 million desktops worldwide and more customers are looking forward to MDOP 2009 R2 and Windows 7! Below are a few quotes from some of our top customers who are seeing real and immediate value with MDOP:

BMW completed a proof of concept of application delivery with Application Virtualization. “We expect cost savings on desktop support once we start deploying App-V with Windows 7,” said Mr. Bernhard Huber, Head of IT Workplace Systems at BMW. “We are also considering AGPM [Advanced Group Policy Management] and MED-V [Enterprise Desktop Virtualization] at a later stage of Windows 7 deployment.”

Heinz Koehler, VP of Infrastructure for E.O.N., Power and Gas Company with 85,000 desktops that are being upgraded to Windows 7, talks about MDOP: “We also expect to use App-V to help reduce the packaging and testing costs of applications and use MED-V to help resolve any application compatibility issues.”

“…MDOP, specifically App-V, has been a hidden gem our customers have found to help them quickly deploy, and then easily manage and maintain their applications in an efficient manner.  In an economy when they are being asked to do more with less, the timing couldn’t have been better for MDOP 2009 R2 to help our clients meet their IT initiatives…,” said Rand Morimoto, President of Convergent Computing.

In addition, Answers Research recently surveyed 1000 IT pros across five countries (commissioned by Microsoft) and we found out that:

• 66% of MDOP customers deployed three or more of the MDOP products
• 52% of them deployed MDOP across more than half of their PCs
• 94% of MDOP customers said they would recommend MDOP to a colleague
• When comparing MDOP and non-MDOP customers, customer satisfaction with Software Assurance increases by 25%

To sum up, MDOP 2009 R2 is available today and it’s there to help you save money and reduce complexity, especially with your Windows 7 deployment. We look forward to hearing your thoughts on this new release!

Are you looking to learn more about Windows 7, Windows Server 2008 R2, Exchange 2010 and other Microsoft products? Well the New Efficiency Virtual Launch Event is the perfect opportunity to do so.

What will you find there?

• Steve Ballmer’s Keynote Replay
• Over 100 sessions presented by Microsoft. Topics include:
  • Windows 7 Application Compatibility
  • Windows 7 Deployment Technologies
  • Windows XP Mode Overview
  • Saving WAN costs with BranchCache
  • Remote Desktop and Applications with WS08 R2
  • Microsoft Web Platform – What’s New in IIS 7.5
  • Voice Mail with Unified Messaging in Exchange 2010
  • Outlook Web App in Exchange 2010
  • Information Protection Solutions Overview
  • MDOP; Asset Inventory Services
  • and much much more
• Visit Virtual Partner Booths from:
  • Cisco, AMD, Dell, Citrix, Intel, plus many others
• Download full version trials of Windows 7 Enterprise, Server 2008 R2, Exchange Server 2010 and Microsoft Forefront.
• Virtual backpacks to you can download transcripts from every demo, documentation and more.
• Links to hundreds of additional Microsoft resources to help you
• Links to brand new Springboard Series Windows 7 content created just for the virtual launch experience.

The best part? All of this is available to you for free. Just visit www.thenewefficiency.com later today and see what happens when cost savings, productivity and innovation come together.

As you already know, on August 7th we made Windows 7 RTM available to our Volume License (VL) customers who have Software Assurance (SA). Windows Server customers are able to download 2008 R2 as of August 14th and on September 1st, we announced VL customers without SA are able to purchase Windows 7 through Volume Licensing. With this broad availability to our business customers, I want to share TCO (“total cost of ownership”) data from early adopters, some feedback from enterprise customers, and advanced companion tools and applications to enable the best experience as businesses deploy Windows 7. We have a lot going on, so read on for all the details.

To support early migration to Windows 7, today we announced on the MDOP Team Blog that we will be releasing Microsoft Desktop Optimization Pack (MDOP) 2009 R2 in late October 2009, which I’ll also talk more about in a bit.

Deployments are happening right now and your company can begin deployment as well! Several of our early adopters are already having great success with Windows 7. I thought I would share some of the TCO findings from studies of three enterprise customer deployments. Customers involved in the studies were:

• Baker Tilly (Professional Services - UK): 2,200 users
• City of Miami (Local Government - US): 2,235 users
• Getronics (IT Services - Netherlands): 14,300 users

Some of the key TCO findings from the studies include:

• Direct cost savings of IT labor dedicated to PC management are expected to be in the range of $89-160 per PC annually. That means IT Pros are saving up to two hours per desktop annually. For companies with several thousand PCs, this frees up a lot of valuable time, allowing IT departments to focus on more mission critical efforts and support their business more efficiently.
• Overall, the $70-$160 in savings per PC annually represents reduction of IT labor costs ranging from a 10-20%. For example, Baker Tilly has been able to re-focus their IT force on strategic projects and estimates they’ll save 18% on PC management costs.
• Companies are realizing power savings with Windows 7 that add to the direct savings in IT Labor. For example, the City of Miami estimates their expected power savings alone ($54 per PC per year) justifies their Windows 7 deployment.
• City of Miami also expects to save big on service desk costs. Previously, the city IT staff had to physically travel to the PC user’s location to resolve support issues. Windows 7 has advanced capabilities such as Remote Desktop, which now help the IT staff to diagnose and resolve issues remotely, saving both travel time and end-user downtime. Built-in features like the Problem Steps Recorder (PSR) have been described as a “nugget of gold in the operating system.” Specifically, PSR helps users communicate problems to the service desk, reducing the need to dispatch technicians to user locations by as much as 90%.

These TCO studies represent a few of our Windows 7 customers. You can find out more by reading the full TCO studies. Here is what other early deploying customers are saying about savings and overall value:

Gokboru Kilic, Client Systems Professional, Turkcell:

We expect support costs to drop by 20 percent with Windows 7.

Andreas Viehauser, Head of Client and Software Management, Raiffeisen Informatik:

We are able to deploy to different computer devices using the same image file—helping reduce deployment time by 60 percent. What used to take three and a half hours now takes as little as one hour.

Miguel Lopez, Project Manager, F. Hoffman LaRoche:

With Group Policies and Windows 7, we’ll have more granular control over our computers and can more easily enforce how we govern our IT environment.

Henk Siereveld, Global IT Director, Bugaboo:

Our users love Windows 7. It provides an easier way of working, the interface is attractive, and it offers more functionality than our prior operating systems.

Mark McBeth, Vice President of IT, Starwood Hotels & Resorts:

From an IT perspective, we’ve received positive feedback on the performance and stability. For us, those are the very first things we look for in an OS for Sheraton.

John McConeghey, IT Manager, Pella

We opted to roll out Windows Server 2008 R2 in tandem with Windows 7 because there are synergies that we gain by deploying the two products together.

Similarly, customers who have deployed App-V from MDOP are also seeing significant savings. Our recent App-V Cost Reduction Study shows Microsoft App-V is THE desktop virtualization product that delivers immediate savings on the desktop. App-V is estimated to provide an annual savings of $156 in hard costs and $125 in user productivity, yielding a total savings of up to $280 per PC annually. 

We are happy to see so much excitement from early Windows 7 adopters, showing the real value Windows 7 provides enterprises. We recently asked Forrester to take a closer look at a broad set of enterprise customers to understand the real challenges of enterprises today and what is most important to them. Forrester surveyed over 318 senior IT decision makers and C- level IT executives in the US, Germany and Japan, with 78% of the respondent companies having over 500 PCs.

Key findings from their survey include:

• For 87% of companies, controlling costs is a critically or very important business priority.
• For 84% of companies, improving employee productivity is a critically or very important business priority.
• For 54% of companies, improving employee mobility is a critically or very important business priority.
• For 86% of companies, security is a critically or very important technology initiative.

As such - mobility, employee productivity and security requirements are surfacing as central challenges to the customer’s experience:

These companies support on average 174 Branch offices each; with only 38% of employees on average working in HQ; with 20% of the branch office workers dissatisfied with their access to corporate data.

• 68% of the companies struggle with the inability to manage PCs when those are not physically connected to the corporate network.
• 10% of the helpdesk calls are VPN-related.
• 23% of the helpdesk calls being related to users needing to install applications to do work and 14% of helpdesk calls are caused by users corrupting their systems by installing unauthorized software – overall an industry concern over malware management.

The study confirmed the real challenges of enterprises today which increase companies’ costs each year. With Windows 7 and MDOP, we developed Windows Optimized Desktop to target challenges to help address the customer’s most critical needs. It’s important to note that customers who deploy Windows 7 and MDOP with their existing server infrastructure will be able to expect significant value, user productivity, stronger data protection, and security and PC management. They can also expect automation improvements that can help them save costs and improve efficiency. The great news for customers here is that they do not have big dependencies on other deployment initiatives before they can realize the benefits of their Windows 7 deployment. However, if customers choose to deploy Windows Server 2008 R2 with Windows 7, they can expect even greater cost savings, reduced complexity and increased user productivity.

We also continue to innovate on MDOP to ensure it serves as a valuable enabler to the deployment and management of Windows 7. As I already mentioned, we’ll be releasing MDOP 2009 R2 in late October. MDOP 2009 R2 will add Windows 7 support for all of the tools except MED-V, which will support Windows 7 in the first quarter of calendar year 2010 via MED-V 1.0 SP1. I recommend reading the MDOP Team Blog for more information on MDOP 2009 R2.

Furthering our efforts help companies deploy Windows 7, we recently announced the availability of the Microsoft Deployment Toolkit (MDT) 2010. MDT 2010 is optimized to support Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2 deployments, and has built-in capabilities to support customers migrating from Windows XP to Windows 7.

With the release of both MDOP 2009 R2 and MDT 2010, and other resources available on the TechNet and Springboard websites, customers can feel confident about the deployment support available for Window 7.

Now is the time to begin testing and deploying Windows 7 with MDOP and Windows Server 2008 R2!

Dell is jumping in to help business (commercial) customers get ready for Windows 7 by offering Windows 7 drivers for their commercial desktop and laptop PCs. They are posting their Windows 7 drivers here (see Drivers and Downloads on left-hand navigation).

By offering drivers for their commercial desktop and laptop PCs, Dell is helping business customers with Dell PCs in their environments prepare for Windows 7 deployments.

For more information, see this blog post on Dell’s Inside Enterprise IT Blog.

We are pleased to announce the immediate availability of the release candidate of MDT 2010.  This release contains numerous bug fixes since MDT 2010 Beta 2. MDT 2010 RC has been tested and will work with Windows 7 RTM and Windows Server 2008 R2 RTM as well as all previously supported operating systems. 

A BIG thank you goes out to all who tested and have given feedback for MDT 2010 Beta 2 (see our post here). We were able to fix several bugs and push through some design changes based on your feedback. Now is the time for you to verify the bug fixes and continue to provide feedback as we work towards the release of MDT 2010.

As with any release please make sure you read through the release notes to understand the known issues with this release and make sure you have a backup of your deployment environment before you upgrade to MDT 2010 RC.

If you have not signed up on Microsoft Connect you can still do so here. If already a member, click here to get the Release Candidate of MDT 2010.

The enthusiasm about the Windows 7 operating system is building as Microsoft provided RTM (release to manufacturing) code to OEMs, like Dell, on July 24th. As a company, Dell has worked very closely with Microsoft during the development of the platform. In fact, Dell has spent thousands of hours testing hundreds of systems with Windows 7 and will continue to test leading up to general availability in Oct 22nd. So far, we have found this newest OS to be very solid and see tremendous value for our business customers.

Dell believes that there are a many opportunities to help customers not only upgrade but get the most out of Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2. In addition to customers looking to upgrade from Windows Vista, many customers who are still on Windows XP will be looking to move to Windows 7 as well. With many of our customers expecting to upgrade their hardware, there are some specific ways that Dell can help customers see a better return on investment tied to an OS refresh.

Today, many customers find that migrating to a new OS can be complicated and risky without the proper planning. They have concerns about data migration, hardware limitations, integration of existing applications and licensing issues. By engaging at the very beginning of a customers’ evaluation of Windows 7, Dell can be an important resource. Both to determine if they will have specific compatibility issues or if their environment is ready to be upgraded. In addition, Dell gives customers a specific roadmap to ensure migration is fast and reliable.

Dell does this through a unique set of services for assessment, design and deployment which can reduce the time and risk of migration, utilizing proven reference architecture with field tested operational models. The company helps customers understand the business potential of transitioning to Windows 7 and/or Windows Server 2008 R2.

Upcoming offerings that can help optimize and manage customers’ infrastructure, include:

• Application Management Services: Application compatibility is a key concern for many customers. Dell has developed a suite of services to efficiently identify, test, remediate and deploy applications. Dell can also help customers inventory and rationalize their application portfolio before initiating the remediation activities to focus resources on the most critical applications.
• Migration and Deployment Services: In order to ease upgrading to Windows 7, Dell offers readiness assessments and optimized OS deployment services.  Dell’s deployment services help customers with all migration aspects including organization, infrastructure, hardware, software, image and deployment.  By leveraging Dell’s global deployment capabilities and tools, customers can more efficiently upgrade to Windows 7, while decreasing deployment time, mitigating risk, and reducing network traffic.
• Image Management Services: These provide fully functional images built by Dell consultants according to the customers’ specifications that are ready for deployment of Windows 7 on Dell client systems.

Today, Dell is already helping early adopters transition to Windows 7. The company is also evaluating all of its services to make sure that Dell offers the right solutions to help customers manage through this transition. Over the next few months, with the earliest beta customers, Dell will continue to help customers transition in the most efficient and cost-effective way possible. 

Jim Ginger
Global Practice Leader of End User Computing
Global Infrastructure Consulting Services at Dell