We've reached a pivotal moment in time, the release to Web of Windows Vista SP1 on Tuesday and, to complete the picture, today we released Microsoft Deployment Toolkit (MDT) 2008, the latest generation of the Microsoft Solution Accelerators designed to simplify and ease your deployment experience.

There are a lot of things to consider when deploying a new OS and, if your organization has 50 desktops or more, MDT is designed to help you navigate the potentially complex desktop environment. Our goal is to save you lots of time and effort in planning and building out a standard desktop experience all the way to rolling OS images out into production.

Don't worry, this is not something unproven and new -- just fewer than 1 million of you across industries have been active users of MDT's predecessor, Business Desktop Deployment (BDD). Past customers include companies like Unilever, Sony Ericsson Mobile Communications and Fred Weber, who reduced their deployment costs from $300 to $35 per PC.

We have been listening to your feedback and augmenting the solution to ensure that the best of real world best practices are infused within the tool.

So what's changed with MDT?                              

In addition to the

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Hello IT Pros!

February 27 is a big day.  Windows Server 2008 will be officially launching in Los Angeles with Steve Ballmer, Microsoft CEO, kicking off in just a few hours. 

In support of this very important technology milestone as well as the Windows Vista SP1 release, the Microsoft Solution Accelerators Team has just released the third-generation of the agent-less infrastructure assessment platform called Microsoft Assessment and Planning Solution Accelerator 3.0 (or simply MAP).  Through the use of remote WMI calls and secure inventory engines, the MAP tool enables you to quickly inventory a wide variety of networks (AD-managed, IP ranges, and workgroups), securely assess IT environments of servers, desktops, applications and devices, and auto-generate specific and actionable reports and proposal documents in a matter of hours.

 

CLICK HERE TO READ THE ENTIRE BLOG POST...

GO HERE TO DOWNLOAD MICROSOFT ASSESSMENT AND PLANNING (RTM BITS)

Thank you,

Baldwin Ng (Sr. Product Manager, Microsoft Assessment and Planning)

Introducing Microsoft Assessment and Planning 3.0 

For those of you who are considering the migration of your desktop and server infrastructure to Windows Vista SP1 and Windows Server 2008, we have good news for you!

As we’ve announced at TechEd IT Forum 2007 in Barcelona last November, the Microsoft Solution Accelerators team is going to release the expanded version of Windows Vista Hardware Assessment 2.1 called Microsoft Assessment and Planning 3.0 (aka MAP).

In short, MAP is an automated agent-less network-wide inventory and assessment tool that can quickly determine if your organization’s desktops and servers are ready for migration to Windows Vista and Windows Server 2008.

What do I mean by AGENT-LESS inventory?  Simply put, it means that you do not need to launch any software agents on any of those machines you want this tool to inventory and query - so no more security concerns and user interruption!

It offers quick network-wide inventory of machines and generate hardware and device compatibility reports with actionable recommendations in the form of auto-generated proposal documents - perfect documentation for your IT project planning in the new fiscal year!

The best part is that

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Day 2 begins here in Barcelona at TechEd IT Forum and we’ve got more news to share with you. With more and more businesses looking to deploy Windows Vista, we wanted to remind IT Pros that we offer tools to help accelerate the testing and planning for Read More……(read more)

Day 2 begins here in Barcelona at TechEd IT Forum and we’ve got more news to share with you.  With more and more businesses looking to deploy Windows Vista, we wanted to remind IT Pros that we offer tools to help accelerate the testing and planning for the migration.  We recently announced Microsoft Deployment, the next version of what was formally known as Business Desktop Deployment (BDD), and today we’re announcing updates to several Windows Vista deployment planning tools to aid the deployment process.

So what’s in Microsoft Deployment that wasn’t available in BDD? For starters, it integrates with recently released deployment technologies such as System Center Configuration Manager 2007 or the Windows Automated Installation Kit to create a single path for image creation and automated installation.  Microsoft Deployment can be used by IT professionals to deploy Windows Vista, Windows Server 2003 and pre-release versions of Windows Server 2008, as well as to deploy Microsoft Office 2007.

We’re also excited to tell you about a new version of the Windows Vista Hardware Assessment Tool (HAT) that’s now available. With version 2.1, HAT

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