Hi, I’m Rich Reynolds and I am the General Manager for the Windows Commercial Marketing organization. I lead the team that drives the marketing efforts for Windows for our business customers across the Enterprise, Mid-Market and Small Business segments, along with IT Pro community engagement.

More than a week ago we shipped the Windows 7 Release Candidate to IT pros and developers, and have been taking in lots of great feedback since then. Our number one priority all along has been to deliver a well-planned, high-quality Windows release that delivers what our business customers want. The team and I have been focused on identifying and building a product that addresses our customers’ needs, and based on customer feedback, we believe we’re on the right track.

Today my boss, Bill Veghte, announced our plans to accelerate the timeframe for making Windows 7 available at retail to all customers in time for the holiday shopping season. With Windows 7 coming soon, I encourage you to download and test the Windows 7 Release Candidate in your environment and let us know your feedback. I talk to customers every day, and I wanted to share a few themes are coming through loud and clear.

Customers are telling us they worry about costs, keeping up with compliance requirements, and about the demands that mobility trends put on their infrastructure as they try to balance users’ productivity with the need to maintain efficiency and security. At its most basic level, they expect an operating system that works great. For an enterprise that means it delivers advanced security and data protection, is easy to deploy and manage, and introduces innovation to make people more productive while also retaining compatibility with hundreds or even thousands of business-critical third-party and LOB applications. Of course, these economic conditions bring unique challenges as well – such as tight budgets, and the need to be as efficient as possible.

From the initial planning of Windows 7 through to delivery of the Release Candidate, we have been deeply engaged with partners and early adopter customers to ensure we are listening to your needs and delivering a high quality product. We are working with early adopters that represent a range of global industries. These include Del Monte, BAA, Transelectrica, Continental Airlines, Pella Corporation, Bombardier Aerospace, the City of Miami, and T-Systems (Deutsche Telekom’s corporate customer unit). Partners like Intel, Dimension Data and Getronics have also helped us develop Windows 7 for their customers and also plan to deploy in their own corporate environments. Overall, we’re hearing good things. Here are a few examples:

• Headquartered in Montreal, Canada, Bombardier Aerospace designs and manufactures products in the aerospace and rail transportation sectors. They’re very interested in MDOP and BitLocker – here’s what their CTO, Pietro Greco, has to say: “We are interested in Windows 7 for its enhanced security and improved manageability which will allow us to create a more productive and efficient environment.”
• Pella Corporation, based in Iowa, designs, manufactures and installs windows and doors. They’re moving from Windows XP to Windows 7. Here’s what Jim Thomas, director of IT Operations and Infrastructure, has to say – early in the process – about their deployment: “From initial testing of Windows 7 in our environment, we’ve already uncovered reasons to believe our investments in time and resources for Windows 7 will be worth it.”
• Continental Airlines’ Managing Director, Global Infrastructure, Eric Craig says: “Continental depends upon technology, but we’re not a technology company, we’re an airline.  If my team can provide an easily managed, low cost, and functionally rich infrastructure, then Continental can focus its technology resources on business specific services.  We do this with the most modern Windows environment.”
• The City of Miami is putting Windows 7 through its paces. Like many of our customers, they like the manageability and security features. They recently held a technology day, where they demoed Windows 7 and Manuel A. Diaz, the Mayor of Miami’s question was “How soon can I get it on my desktop?” We hope that’s what a lot of people will be saying soon!

We’re encouraged by the customer and partner feedback we’re receiving and will continue to work hard to deliver a very high quality product that meets our customers demanding business needs.

More customer insight can be found at our Talking About Windows site. Check it out to hear the back stories from the engineers who developed Windows 7, and the early adoption experiences from IT professionals like you. It’s a place for you to find out more about Windows 7, join the conversation and ask questions. We’d love to hear your feedback.

To give you a sense for some of the features are customers are excited about – a customer in the manufacturing industry in Europe was particularly interested in the DirectAccess capability (also delivered via Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2, with IPsec and IPv6 implementation). This technology allows users to access corporate resources from the road without having to start a VPN connection. Coupled with Federated Search capability, this customer saw the opportunity to provide easier access to the information that their people need from wherever they are, while at the same time offsetting costs associated with their existing VPN solution today.

From a technology perspective, BranchCache is also getting a lot of attention. A few weeks ago I talked to a big US retailer and they were thrilled about BranchCache. This capability, delivered by Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2, allows the caching of frequently accessed data locally in a branch office. This reduces user wait time, saves network bandwidth, and reduces the need for servers in multiple branch offices. They liked the idea of their employees spending less time in the office and more time serving customers on the store floor.

And almost universally, business customers are excited about the BitLocker To Go capability. This not only allows users to easily encrypt the USB drives, it also provides an ability to enforce encryption on removable storage devices. A European bank was telling me how excited they are about this capability to protect their data, and they saw the opportunity to offset costs associated with their existing encryption solution.

I’m anxious to hear about your experiences using Windows 7. As you try it out, chime in below and let us know what you think. For business customers who have not yet started, I recommend you download and test the Windows 7 Release Candidate. The final version is coming soon and we want you not only to be excited about it, but prepared. At this site you’ll be able to download the Release Candidate and take advantage of a whole host of tools and guidance for IT Professionals to help you prepare. We look forward to your feedback.

Along with 17,000+ other security- minded professionals, I’m at RSA in San Francisco this week. For those who are not familiar with the RSA Conference, it’s the premier information security conference of the year. It attracts the best and brightest security folks from around the world. In addition, it is a great place to keep up with what’s going on in the information security marketplace. I’m at RSA to not only see what’s going on in the industry, but to also talk about some of the cool new security features in Windows 7.

We’re really excited about Windows 7’s new security features. This next OS is built upon the proven security technologies in Windows Vista and provides a fundamentally secure computing platform. We not only utilized enhanced Security Development Lifecycle (SDL) process during planning, development and testing but we also have worked to make the security features more discoverable, usable and manageable. These enhancements give Windows 7 the expanded security offerings to provide the necessary security controls to help mobile workers access the information they need to be productive, wherever and whenever they need it.

There is a lot of new stuff in Windows 7, but let me highlight some of those things that go into helping the mobile worker…

Multiple Active Firewall Policies

In Windows Vista, firewall policy is based on the “type” of network connection established—such as Home, Work, Public, or Domain (the fourth, hidden type.) This can be a security problem for IT professionals since mobile users will connect to multiple networks while on the road. For example, let’s say I get connected to the Internet through a “Public” network. As a result, the “Public” firewall policy is applied to the computer. Now, if I want to connect to the Microsoft corporate network via my VPN, the IT configured firewall settings for accessing the “Domain” corporate network cannot be applied because the first network type (and thus the firewall settings) had already been set.

Windows 7 gets rid of this IT pain through support for multiple active firewall policies. This enables my PC to obtain and apply domain firewall profile information regardless of other networks that may be active on the PC. Now IT Pros can simplify connectivity and security policies by maintaining a single set of rules for both remote clients and clients that are physically connected to the corporate network and know that the rules are appropriately applied.

DirectAccess

When I travel or am day-extending by working from home, I tend to need a lot of access to the corporate Intranet. As you can imagine, we use SharePoint a lot and a large number of our Line of Business applications are all Web- enabled. The result: I have to use our corporate VPN a lot. Unfortunately, it’s always an interruption for me to stop what I am doing and to fire up my VPN connection.

Windows 7 works in conjunction with Windows Server 2008 R2 to make working outside of the office simpler and less frustrating with DirectAccess. DirectAccess works by automatically establishing a bi-directional connection from client computers to the corporate network. As a result, as a remote user I have seamless, secure access to the corporate network anytime I am connected to the Internet, without having to manually initiate a traditional VPN connection. This helps make me more productive and allows me to focus on my work and not the remote access technology. Now whenever and wherever I travel, I can not only access my corporate email, but also open Intranet sites, shared drives, use line-of-business applications, and have full access to corporate resources that I need to do my job without having to manually create my VPN tunnel.

From a security perspective, DirectAccess is built on a foundation of proven, standards-based technologies like IPv6 and IPSec. IPsec is utilized to authenticate both the computer and user. This allows IT the capability to manage the computer even before I log on. IT can also optionally require me to authenticate with a smart card. IPsec is also utilized to provide encryption for communications across the Internet with encryption algorithms such as AES.

DirectAccess also has a cool benefit for IT Pros as well, since it provides an always on, secure mechanism to remotely manage and update the PCs of their mobile workforce. Whenever my laptop has Internet connectivity it is directly connected to the Microsoft corporate network. This gives IT more opportunity to distribute software updates and policies to me and other mobile workers and helps keep our machines free of malware and other unwanted software.

BranchCache

DirectAccess is great for the mobile worker, but what about the remote worker who works out in a branch office location? I’ve worked in many a branch office and the one thing they all seem to have in common is limited network bandwidth. Accessing large files in a branch office is always a slow, frustrating affair for me. I, like most users, prefer a snappy network and quick downloads. All the waiting that I have to do-- or you have to do -- is just lost productivity that, at the end of the day, can hurt the company’s bottom line.

Windows 7 incorporates BranchCache, another technology that works in conjunction with Windows Server 2008 R2, which helps make network responsiveness of applications and data housed within your data center feel snappy. This gives users in remote, branch offices the experience of working as if they were on the local area network (LAN) of the server they are accessing.

BranchCache also helps reduce the utilization of the wide area network (WAN). When BranchCache is enabled, a copy of any data accessed from Intranet Web sites and/or file servers is cached locally within the branch office. When another client on the same network requests the file, the client downloads it from the local cache without downloading the same content across the WAN.

The key thing for me is that it makes access to static data quick and it is all done without decreasing the security of that data. Access controls are enforced on cached files in the same way they are on original files.

BitLocker To Go

While here at RSA, it is inevitable that I will need to share data with one of my trusted partners or customers. My primary method of transferring data is to use one of the half dozen or so USB sticks I carry around in my backpack. Over time, these USB sticks end up with all sorts of different data and documents on them. As a security guy, I worry about what would happen if I lost one of these USB sticks. What if I have some confidential or customer data on one of them?

Windows 7 helps address the continued threat of data leakage with introduction of BitLocker To Go: an extension to BitLocker in Windows Vista that allows me to encrypt the disk volume of removable storage devices with a password and/or a digital certificate stored on a smart card.

BitLocker To Go was designed to facilitate the secure sharing of data on removable storage devices and was designed to work on any standard removable storage device. No special, proprietary hardware is required. So now, whether you are traveling with your laptop, sharing large files with a trusted partner, or taking work home, you can feel secure that your data is safe. Both traditional BitLocker and BitLocker To Go protected devices help ensure that only authorized users can read the data, even if the media is lost, stolen, or misused.

One last thing worth mentioning -- I can use BitLocker To Go to share data with a Windows user who is running Windows Vista or Windows XP through the BitLocker To Go Reader. This application is installed by default on removable storage volumes and allows read-only access on older versions of Windows while still allowing you to help protect your USB sticks.

AppLocker

While I feel good about protecting my data with BitLocker in case it is lost or stolen, data can still be lost due to malware or other unwanted software. When I talk to customers about keeping malware off of their systems, we always end up talking about desktop lockdown and the first topic of desktop lockdown is always removing administrative access from a majority of users. This is a great first step for any organization to take; however, workers today bring software from home, download applications from the Internet (intentional and unintentional), and access new programs through email. Many of these applications don’t need system- wide, administrative access to install or run. The result is a higher incidence of malware infections, more help desk calls, and difficulty in ensuring that only approved, licensed software is installed and utilized.

Windows 7 has a new application control solution in AppLocker. AppLocker gives control back to IT administrators and helps them eliminate unknown and unwanted software in their environment. AppLocker can be configured through Group Policy and can help manage those applications that run on corporate PCs, helping keep your organization’s data safe and your enterprise PCs manageable. AppLocker works by intercepting kernel calls that try to create new processes or load libraries and making sure that the code in question has been allowed to execute.

AppLocker just might be my favorite security feature in Windows 7, for it not only provides security protections but as an ex-IT Pro I really appreciate the operational and compliance benefits as well. Things like:

• Keeping unlicensed, vulnerable software from running in the desktop environment, including stopping workers from running applications that needlessly use consumer network bandwidth or otherwise impact the enterprise computing environment.
• Easing enterprise software deployments and maintenance through effective desktop configuration management.
• AppLocker allows users to install and run approved applications and software updates based upon their business needs.
• Helping ensure a company’s desktop environment is in compliance with corporate policies and industry regulations such as PCI DSS, Sarbanes-Oxley, HIPAA, Basel II, and others.

More to Come

This is just a small part of what’s in Windows 7 from a security perspective, and just the tip of the iceberg for the features I’ve described. Stay tuned for more information on what’s going on at RSA and more information on the cool new security technologies in Windows.