Cloud Computing – Page 2

Office 365 and Bandwidth – Adoption to Cloud Computing

Where I live, in The Caribbean, Office 365 is available in most countries, on most islands. However, customers have concerns about bandwidth. So this is my second Blog Post in the context of Adopting to Cloud Computing.

There are some really great options to reduce bandwidth usage but that touches strongly on end user behavior (not that I mind, I’m a huge advocate of serious end user training before moving to the cloud). Of course, working with Office 365 requires a decent Internet Connection at the workplace and maybe even decent 4G (LTE) coverage for the road warriors. You do not need huge speed to be able to do your work. Let’s have a look at what users can do to work effectively in the Cloud without consuming too much bandwidth.

Mail: the first thing people do when coming into the office is check their email (actually, it’s even worse, the first thing people do when they wake up is check their email on their Mobile device to see if there was someone who mailed in the middle of the night). Outlook Web App is so powerful nowadays, I tend to say “who needs Outlook”. There is even an “offline availability” feature. Outlook has the option to not cache emails on the local computer. In either case there is hardly any data flowing over the network. And of course all tips and tricks I wrote down in my Blog post “Mail Senders, Stop doing that” are valid to reduce bandwidth through email.

Lync: now that people are already pretty familiar with the possibility of Video Calls, in a lot of Business conversations the video bit has hardly any contribution. It’s really about awareness and education to make users understand how to use Lync/Skype wisely for conferencing. In Desktop or Application sharing beware what and how to share. It’s better to stage PowerPoint presentations, it is better if participants in the call use Office Online to be on the same page in any Office document during the call. Prepare a Lync meeting like you prepare a real meeting. IM and Presence do not require a great deal of bandwidth.

Yammer: when wisely used, Yammer can eliminate lots of email and even lots of Lync calls. It’s a perfect platform for discussion and information sharing.

SharePoint: for me, SharePoint is the equivalent of Office Online. Work in the browser whenever I can. Using Office Online means no data flows over the network. No downloading and uploading of Office files, they stay put on SharePoint. This is really something users need to get used to. We are all SO used to working in the local installed Office versions. Deadly for working effectively with SharePoint is the use of Windows Explorer: use the browser!!!

OneDrive for Business: of course it’s great we have unlimited storage in OneDrive for Business now but be very careful on Syncing all that content, you do not have unlimited storage on your NotebookJ. And of course Syncing uses Bandwidth…..and it uses Windows Explorer. Luckily in the very near future we can setup “selective syncing”. Personally, I sync nothing. I am always online, if I’m not, I don’t even bother to switch on my PC. I am a road warrior, I travel 50% of my time, spending a lot of time on airports and airplanes and even without syncing I can always do some work when offline. Just a matter of planning.

Office Online: use it! Office Online is THE best thing when it comes to reducing usage of bandwidth. Put your stuff in SharePoint Online and edit/view in Office Online. Brilliant!

All of this is no IT Pro Rocket science, it has nothing to do with Migrating to the Cloud. This is all about adoption of end users to use the rich features of The Online Collaboration Suite wisely. That takes time so organizations looking to moving to the Cloud should start at least the awareness process and start planning the necessary Training. Manage expectations when moving to the Cloud.

The GAP between Cloud Migration and Cloud Adoption

Everybody is starting or already on the way of migrating stuff to the Cloud. Business cases revolve around money. Direct cash back. However, Cloud Adoption is very different from Cloud Migration. And actually I believe we do it in the wrong order: we migrate and maybe someday, but not now, we (will try to) adopt.

Let me define Cloud Migration and Cloud Adoption. Cloud migration is about taking a workload currently running in the local network and move that workload to the Cloud. A Mailbox migration to Exchange Online is a perfect example of Cloud Migration. Cloud Adoption is about leveraging features of workloads running in the Cloud which are not available when those workloads run in the local network. Office 365 for example advertises with “Enterprise Grade Features” but moving a Mailbox does not imply those features will be used. And most often they will not be used. So having you mailbox in the Cloud does not mean you do Cloud computing.

Recently I commented on http://www.conceptsearching.com/wp/challenges-in-adopting-cloud/ and my only comment was that this is the consequence of BAD PreSales and BAD Management of Customer Expectations. When we do not put an effort in on Cloud Adoption, the results of Cloud Migration are disappointing and frustrating. Maybe that is the main reason for this report to come out with such statistics.

Mea culpa. Me too, I have been focusing too much on the technical challenges of Migrating workloads to the Cloud. Although, together with that, I have always been evangelizing the powers of the Collaboration Suite; Exchange, Lync, SharePoint, Office, Devices. Then we talk Adoption. To get the full benefits of Cloud, Adoption should be the context and Migration is just content. Migration is only the execution of part of the adoption.

Now that Cloud Migration is no longer “rocket science” and now that the dust has settled, we can redefine Cloud Adoption as a Strategy whereas Cloud Migration was a tactical operation. For Organizations this is GREAT news. It means a huge step in getting IT as a “Business Enabler” instead of a “Cost Center. And for IT Companies and Consultants that is GREAT news too. It means we can engage in longer projects with our Customers! Adopting them to the Cloud and contribute to our Customers in moving their IT forward. Less technical and tactical, more engaging and strategic.

Happy Adopting!!!

Accounts, Identities and mail addresses

Users want to access applications and data that run anywhere, and, they want to run them from anywhere. There is only a very thin line left distinguishing business apps from non-business apps and they all need to be accessible anytime, anyplace, anywhere. That calls for Identity Management which can be very confusing for users. So here is a little explanation on the why, the what and the how.

In the old days we used to logon to our computer using this format:

Domain\user
Computer\user

Or maybe even without the domain\ or computer\:

User (domain user)
User (local computer user)

As long as the applications and their data sat on that local computer or in that local Active Directory domain, a logon like this worked perfectly. (Really? No. It uses NetBIOS and that protocol is soooo 1987, but that discussion is out of scope for this article)

The logon identity for a user must now be valid outside of the local computer and the local Active Directory as well. It must identify the user as a unique identity across multiple platforms, preferably: local computer, Active Directory, cloud applications like Office365 and personal applications like Facebook, Gmail, Twitter and the rest of it all.

The format to logon is called User Principal Name and a UPN looks like an email address and that can be very confusing for some users, for example:

firstname.lastname@domain.com

NOTE: this is NOT necessarily a mail address! A mail address for this user could be, for example:

firstinitiallastname@companydomain.com

If your computer is running Windows 8 (or above) you can logon using a Microsoft Account (a.k.a. LiveID or Hotmail.com or outlook.com account). The format of such an account is always the UPN format and it may or may not correspond to your private email account.

If you use multiple devices like PC, laptop, tablet, Windows Phone, the Microsoft Account synchronizes a lot of settings between your devices (like recent documents, desktop wallpaper, etc.) so that the user experiences a unified work environment, on whatever device.

Next to having a Microsoft Account (private, individual) you can have an Active Directory account to access corporate resources in your corporate network, maybe even remotely. Active Directory can (and should) have UPN as logon format instead of the NetBIOS domain\user.

When using Microsoft Online services like Office365, Microsoft Intune or Microsoft Azure you may have a so called Organizational Account, always in the format of a UPN. It can be synchronized from your Active Directory account, even with synchronization of your password. But beware, unless a thing called Federated Identities is enabled by your administrators, it still is 2 separate identities; you logon to separate authentication providers, your local Active Directory and a Cloud Authentication provider like Azure Active Directory.

So until now, this is all on accounts, the mechanism with which you authenticate yourself. Now we get to email addresses.

An email address always comes in the format of UPN (actually UPN’s were there first and email addresses were derived from the UPN). As noted above, the account does not necessarily have to match an email address. It can but it is not a requirement.

And that is exactly what can make it very confusing for users if they do not distinguish the difference between accounts (UPN, identity) and email addresses. THEY ARE TWO DIFFERENT THINGS! A user can sign with one UPN and have access through that to multiple mail addresses (aliases) even in different domains.

Some organizations and users try to match the account UPN to the email address, making it simple for users: who you are (account UPN) is your mail address. It gets confusing when you have multiple accounts AND multiple email addresses. In order to get it straightened out for yourselves you can create a little table like this and fill out the appropriate UPN’s:

Access to	Microsoft Account	Active Directory Account	Organizational Account
Devices
Active Directory
Online Services
Office ProPlus
Work email
Private email

Happy logging on!

Office 365 – Office Pro Plus Deployment Tool – An example

When you browse the Internet for use of the Office Deployment Tool for Click-to-Run for Office products you may find yourself lost in a myriad of websites referring to other websites and send you into several complete circles. There just too much out there if you just need to do a rollout for 5 or 10 PC’s. I thought I just make an example for the whole process.

Some background on my example. I have to do a rollout on 4 PC’s, last time I visited that location the Internet connection was terrible. And, I found out that users do not have a dedicated PC in the small Office. That gives me 2 good reasons to prepare the rollout using the Office Deployment Tool at home: no slow downloads on 4 PC’s and I can configure the shared computer activation.

On my Surface Pro3 I created a directory C:\o365 and Shared it with Everyone (Read Permissions) as \\jk-proi7\o365 .

In that directory I downloaded the Office Deployment Tool for Click-to-Run, you can find it here: http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=36778 . Run “officedeploymenttool.exe” which creates only 2 files, so I’m left with 3 files in that directory:

Now I need to download the binaries of the Office Pro Plus in the language(s) I need and the versions (32 bits – 64 bits) I need. In my situation I only need the English 32 bits version so I edit, in Notepad, the “configuration.xml” file:

</Product>

</Add>

</Configuration>

And I saved the file as “downloadus.xml” in that same directory, keeping everything together.

I’m ready to download now so I click Run and enter the following command:

\\jk-proi7\o365\setup.exe /download \\jk-proi7\o365\downloadus.xml

I accept the UAC warning and a CMD Prompt Window opens with just a blinking cursor. That is bit annoying, no progress bar or what so ever. But in my directory I see files added and in Task Manager I can see my network is downloading at full speed. So stuff is happening, just wait until the CMD Prompt Window closes.

My o365 Directory now contains a folder “Office” which is just over 1 GB in size; the Office Pro Plus binaries!

For deploying Office Pro Plus I need to edit the “configuration.xml” once again and this time I save as “installus.xml”:

</Product>

</Add>

</Configuration>

Notice I used the Property Name to make sure that multiple users can run Office Apps on the machine after deployment. More on Shared Activation can be found here: http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/dn782860(v=office.15).aspx

To install Office Pro Plus with these configuration settings I run the following command (with elevated privileges) on each machine:

\\jk-proi7\o365\setup.exe /configure \\jk-proi7\o365\installus.xml

Once again the nagging Command Prompt Window with no information. But look at Task Manager and folders being created, there is stuff happening on the PC.

Now all different users can logon to the PC and individually activate their Office Pro Plus.

A good starting point to read more on the whole process: http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/jj219422(v=office.15).aspx

Azure in Plain Words

Microsoft Azure is BOOMING. The platform is getting new features and feature updates on a daily basis and for most people it’s hard to keep up with that. Some may even give up on it, being overwhelmed by the possibilities on Azure. In this blogpost I will try to write in plain words on 8 features that I like most. No technical deep dives, just the functionalities and the benefits of having those functionalities running on Azure. Basically all sits in the cloud, meaning no local resources: Storage, CPU, RAM, and Networking. And you pay per use.

Azure Websites. Whatever website you want to run, a basis (static) public facing company website, a web application, a web shop, Azure offers the platform. This blog sits on Azure as simple Azure Website + WordPress template deployed on it. Takes about 10 minutes to set that up and have it running. For more complex web applications, with stuff running in a backend database, transaction processing we can deploy websites as Cloud Service. And finally, to have total control, we can create Virtual Machines running the web applications. All 3 options are scalable depending on demand and of course all 3 flavors come with their own set of benefits/drawbacks.
Azure Virtual Machines. Within minutes we can spin on a Server and manage it as if it is spinning locally or we can upload Virtual Machines that are already running locally. Scale up the servers (add RAM and CPU) as needed or scale out (add servers) as needed. During the day time 6 servers could be running, at night there will be just one server running. Any Server Role can run on an Azure Virtual Machine. You could start with deploying a test & development environment in Azure. In the template Gallery there are plenty of pre-loaded templates available:
Azure Virtual Networks. For those Virtual Machines to function they need to be placed in a network. We can create Virtual Networks on Azure to connect to those Virtual Machines and to connect the Virtual Machines to whatever they need to connect to. We can extend our local networks to Azure and spin on Servers and Services as needed.
Azure Service Bus. More and more applications tend to communicate with each other. In order to do that there must be some kind of communication infrastructure in place. Through Azure Service Bus applications can talk to each other wherever the application runs. Some applications just talk while others only listen and some may do both, so that those distributed applications can complete the tasks they are set up to do.
Azure Remote App. Azure Remote App became General Available just a week ago and enables organizations to publish just about any application to end users wherever they are. Scalable, resilient, redundant and connected to any backend required. Remote App has been available running on onprem servers for a couple of years, this takes it to the cloud!

Azure Storage. Of course Services we run on Azure require storage. Fast storage, high available storage, cheap storage. One of the use cases for Azure Storage is backup of local servers. We all know that backups should be kept off premises, well, this is a nice way of having that in place.
Azure SQL Database. A lot of applications need a SQL Database to store, query and retrieve data. And sometimes it’s a bit over the top to go to a full-featured SQL Server. Azure SQL Databases offers SQL Database services without the need of deploying a Virtual Server and install SQL Server on it.
Azure Active Directory. Authentication and Authorization mechanisms need to be out there in order to allow users to access the resources in Azure. We can integrate that with our local Active Directory but also with “industry authentication providers” like Google and Facebook through Azure Access Control Services.

Microsoft Azure offers more than mentioned in this blogpost, please visit http://azure.microsoft.com/ for more information.

The Office 365 Theatre Play

I happen to know a lot on Office 365, working with it as a Consultant and Trainer ever since the BPOS Era. And I happen to have some Marketing colleagues around me who are really done with Events and Sessions and Demos. But in the region where we work, The Caribbean, a lot of marketing needs to be done to create awareness and business on Microsoft’s “Cloud First – Mobility First”. For an already planned Event we needed to be creative.

When I heard about the location, the Luna Blou Theatre on Curacao, I immediately thought of writing a play, a theatre play. It took us a couple of conversations on what it should look like and then I started thinking and drawing and writing. The story should encompass the whole process a Business will go through before they actually work in the Cloud. Just as in a real play I created several scenes. As the talks in the scenes proceed so do PowerPoint slides in the background.

Scene 1. In the first scene my colleague Mark plays a Business Owner who heard something about Office 365. I play the Consultant explaining him what it is. In the following conversation we hit topics on security, availability, education, pricing and how to get there.

Scene 2. The second scene is all about Training. Colleague Mark is still the Business owner and Daimaline plays her role of Training Coordinator. She goes over the different options we have available for end user Trainer like Online Live (in cooperation with New Horizons), Instructor Led, and Instructor Led 8 x 3 hours, etc. And of course also the Training options we have for the IT Pro’s, the people that will have to manage the new platforms.

Scene 3. Ronald as the IT Manager of Mark’s business has done the 5 day Training on Office 365 and discusses the options he’d prefer with me as the Consultant. So we have the conversation on Identities, Migration options (including our Partner BitTitan’s MigrationWiz).

Ronald and me in Scene 3. In the background a bulleted list of our topics

Scene 4. In the final scene we put it all together and use a “Microsoft Customer Immersion Experience” demo-environment and play as if Mark’s Business has made the transition. We use a multiple Beamer/Projector setup to showcase OneNote, co-authoring, collaborating without the use of email, Yammer, CRM integration. We even throw in some preconfigured devices into the audience so they can also participate in the CIE to experience the look and feel of Office 365.

Me giving someone in the Audience a Windows Phone

All attendees thought it was very new and refreshing way of giving a comprehensive overview on Office 365. We had very good criticsJ:

Our Partner Account Manager, Suresh Dookeran from Microsoft: “Again, congrats on the request for the encore performance and special thanks to the Director of production for thinking outside the box. This concept has been tossed around for so long and it’s so refreshing to have a brave enough team willing to execute!”

Inova’s CEO Hans Kruithof: “Be sure that for Curacao the other actors are ready and prepared for this great re-run of this already classic epic play.”

Office 365 MVP Jethro Seghers, Program Manager at BitTitan: “Sooo cool. Do you mind if we send this internally?”

We have been invited by the Central Bank of Curacao and Saint Maarten to do a re-run during their “Information Technology Service Management Seminar”. In the first week of December we’ll be performing the show in Jamaica and other countries are lining up.

I think we should end up on Broadway and win some Awards! Thanks to the whole crew of Inova Solutions and NetPro!

Working as a Happy Cloud Company

One of the first projects I took on when I started with my current employer a year ago was to “get our stuff to the Cloud”. Inova Solutions is a Microsoft Gold Partner “Licensing Solution Provider” and my CEO aimed to have 50% of our resources in the Microsoft Cloud within a year. It all went a bit faster than that so we’ve been working with Office365, Intune, CRM Online and Azure for over half a year now. We are used to it, we don’t even wonder about it anymore, it is business as usual. And, there is a bunch of features available we still have to discover and implement, which will take us some time. Business as usual. Happy CEO.

But every now and then we become aware again that it is extraordinary that our entire organization runs all of its business completely in the Cloud.

We have seen this huge decline in IT Costs, be it investments or maintenance. Things don’t break anymore. Our offices on Aruba, Curacao, Jamaica and Trinidad do not rely on site-to-site VPNs anymore. We are always on at a constant low cost. Happy CFO.

When we meet with customers, with partners and even with Microsoft, people are astonished that we actually work like that! All of it, all the time. We do not only Walk-the-Talk, we are actually “Being what is Next” for a lot of organizations. Customers like that and they want that. Most of the time it’s not the IT Manager that makes the decision, it’s higher Management that asks how long it will take us to build them that. It is becoming strategic instead of tactical, increasing productivity while decreasing costs. Doing events and showing off our own dog food makes the audience dribble (have to make sure we have tissues). Happy Customers, Happy Sales People.

And in the meantime we can work anywhere, from hotel rooms, lounges, airports, airplanes, home, and we can work anytime. I tend to wake up very early, like 4 AM, every now and then I meet my colleague who tends to be a night worker on Lync: “Morning Jasper”. “Go to bed Shawn”. We get our stuff done. Without any servers. If the Internet connection breaks we go to Starbucks and work on. If lightning strikes and we lose power for a couple of hours we do the same. We still get our stuff done. Coffee gets cold because we are getting stuff done all the time. Happy Mobile Workers.

Isn’t it amazing? We are a Happy Cloud Only Company, that is what we preach, that is what we practice. Mobile First – Cloud First: Happy CTO!

Are you next to be Happy?

Office 365 Exams – Again

Some two years ago I took the then brand new Microsoft Exams on Office 365. Passing both Exam 70- 321 Deploying Office 365 and Exam 70-323 Administering Office 365 made me MCITP Office 365. Back then I wrote about those exams, how hard I thought they were (I still now only a few people who passed them both), although I held MCTS Exchange and MCITP SharePoint and already did a great deal of work on Office 365.

Now Microsoft has made available two new exams, 70-346 Managing Office 365 Identities and Requirements and 70-347 Enabling Office 365 Services, passed them both and my call myself MCSA Office 365. It’s rather interesting to see how these exams then and now compare. The main feature added in the 2 years between them is of course Office ProPlus and the ways it can be deployed. All other features are more of the same, expanded features but not real new features. The experience was a bit like the Windows Server and Active Directory exams, you come from NT3.51 or NT4.0 and do Windows 2000 Server, Windows Server 2003, Windows Server 2008 and now Windows Server 2012. Some new features and more of the same for the existing features. The exams evolve with Scenario’s, drag and drop items and complete PowerShell scripts questions but still they test you on what Microsoft thinks is important to know.

Back to MCSA Office 365, breaking the content up in a part called “Identities ad Requirements” and a part called “Enabling Services” seems pretty logical, the first is more about the current onprem environment and the latter more about the Office 365 platform. Also a very logical order for organizations who want to leverage Office 365 without the assistance of external parties. The Exam requirements at http://www.microsoft.com/learning/en-us/exam-70-346.aspx and http://www.microsoft.com/learning/en-us/exam-70-347.aspx correspond very well with the content of the exams, no surprises there.

I do believe that these two exams are less difficult than the MCITP ones but on the other hand, they deserve more being part of a MCSE Track instead of a MCSA Track. They really come on top of MCSA Server 2012 or even on top of MCSE Exchange/SharePoint. Like two years ago and probably also like two years from now, Office 365 is a very broad set of Microsoft Technologies on which you have to be very comfortable if you want to pass these exams. So, yes, the MCSA Office 365 exams are tough cookies meaning that this certification will certainly have value.

Wish you all Happy Learning!

Office 365 Hybrid with Exchange 2007 & Exchange 2013: Trouble!

Currently I’m working on an Office365 Migration. Although the end goal is to have all resources Online, I always prefer to do the Hybrid Deployment. The best and only reason for that is that this has the least impact on end users. And that is what it’s all about: keep the customer satisfied.

First I cleaned up the 5 year old mail environment. Old mailboxes from long gone users, weird aliases, shared mailboxes and distribution lists. Exchange 2007 ran SP1 CU8 and that was not enough to introduce Exchange 2013 in the Exchange Organization. Moved it up to Exchange 2007 SP3 CU11. Cool.

Secondly I installed AD FS and DirSync, which are both required for Hybrid Exchange deployments. As I plan to have the whole migration done over the weekend, I did not do a fully redundant AD FS installation; just one server. Oh, I updated the SAN Certificate with “sts” and “legacy”, so I’m done with only the one certificate that was already on the Exchange 2007 box. Added my mail namespace to Office365 and ran ALL the tests with the Remote Connectivity Analyzer https://testconnectivity.microsoft.com/ (never leave home without it).

Thirdly I did all the prerequisites for installing Exchange 2013 CU3, also, cool. Things were looking real good, services kept running and no user impact whatsoever. OWA, ActiveSync, Outlook, OAB, everything smiles here on Aruba (the servers are actually located on Curacao). And I ran ALL the tests with the Remote Connectivity Analyzer. I decided to do the mailbox moves prior to the switch of the MX Record and the autodiscover record.

Finally home, I launched the Hybrid Configuration Wizard in the Exchange Admin Center. All looks well, next, next, finish, no errors. Cool stuff, that Wizard. I’m from the old school, when Office 365 just launched, some years ago, I did the whole configuration of Federated Exchange manually. I am sure glad I did that a couple of times and as a Trainer I have seen participant make all the possible mistakes. So I know about mailflow, certificates, TLS, smarthosts, accepted and authoritative domains. Because it is getting ugly, real ugly now.

I created a test account Onprem and moved it to Online, which went okay. But no mailflow….. no mailflow from Onprem to Online ……. no mailflow from Online to Onprem….. no mailflow from External through Onprem to Online…… yeah, mailflow from Online to External. That is a 25% score; NOT GOOD. Big Trouble, a NO-GO for migrating users at this stage.

Troubleshooting. Message Tracking, Delivery Reports. After some hours of configuring and reconfiguring, rerunning the Hybrid Exchange Wizard, NDR’s showed up that servers would keep trying to send the messages: “451 5.7.3 STARTTLS is required to send mail”. That one I brought to my favorite Search Engine (But It’s Not Google) and a big list of articles appeared. Let’s have a read. The outcome is that I disabled the created Send Connector on my Onprem Exchange 2007 Server (apparently that server did not even recognize the connector cause on editing the config it sputtered “cannot find object on DC01). And I created a new one and set it to use TLS for my online namespace. Ah, some mailflow! From Onprem to Online is working! So the Online Inbound Connector is okay! So, we’re up to a 75% score! Getting better. The Online Outbound Connector is faulty (at least with an Exchange 2007 Onprem Server). I disabled it, created a new one going to “Partner” instead of “Onprem”, Opportunistic TLS and the namespace of my Internet Domain. And we’re up to 100% Mailflow!!!!

Maybe I should have set all the incoming and outgoing mailflows to the Hybrid Exchange 2013 server to avoid all this, but I didn’t. Therefore my conclusion is that the Hybrid Configuration Wizard does NOT work with an Onprem Exchange 2007 Server because Exchange 2007 Server does not know what the difference is between “Partner” and “Onprem” and it also does not recognize the Send Connector created by the Wizard.

So now I can sit on my porch on One Happy Island Aruba and be satisfied with the results. Next weekend I migrate mailboxes, now I start studying for my SharePoint 2013 Exam.

Why DaaS is no good

That is a pretty bold statement, I know. Some blog posts ago I mentioned things like “who needs a desktop”. What I meant then, users want their apps and their data. Be it in a Desktop, a Tablet or a Phone. Now, in this post I try to make a point in not going DaaS (which, by the way means being nuts in my native language Dutch).

Recently I read an article that our next “Windows XP + Office 2003” is going to be “Windows 7 + Office 2010”. I think Microsoft made a mistake stating that end of life for Windows 7 will be 2020 (http://windows.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/products/lifecycle ). And then this week I saw Amazon coming on to the marketplace with a DaaS solution based on…. Windows Server 2008R2, so, a Windows 7 look alike from a user perspective. At least Microsoft, Citrix and VMware are taking it a bit more serious in trying to deliver some sort of DaaS based on Server 2012, so a Windows 8 look alike. But Amazon is a huge player in the Public Cloud, they can deploy this on a very, very large scale. Maybe someday (but not now) Microsoft will do something about their Client OS Licensing model so we can have some true Desktop as a Service, on a genuine Client Operating System. But that is not the point I’m trying to make here.

Organizations run into some weird split model. On the one hand more and more apps are Web Based; all you need is a decent Browser, more and more apps are available for non-desktop devices, even enterprise apps. The Office Web Apps Suite is a nice example of that. The Bring Your Own Disaster/Device movement is pushing in that direction. And on the other hand we’re stuck with the Big, Static, Jurassic Legacy Enterprise Applications that need ….. a Desktop to be deployed on. And rather a Windows XP Desktop then a Windows 8.1 Start Screen.

As long as we, we as in creating IT Wonderland, keep clinging on to Desktops, those Enterprise Application builders will not change the way they make their apps. Obstructing progression. And IT Staff will be reluctant to upgrade because the Enterprise LOB Apps won’t run on the new OS. Businesses invested heavily in those Applications and now use that to justify not moving forward. And those Software Vendors laugh out loud, they just keep on making money without any need to invest in updating their products. Hey, we just continue providing Desktops with “compatibility” mode, MED-V and more tricks to make the 16-bit App run in an emulated DOS Box.

Maintaining and managing desktops, whether physical, private cloud or public cloud based, is more expensive than we think, I know a lot of enterprises that have no idea how much they spend on that. It might be more expensive than the losses of getting rid of the LOB Applications. Certainly in the long run.

There is NO demand for Desktops, we only think there is and some of us try to make a buck out of it. There is nothing wrong with that as long as you don’t hold on to making your buck that way. Start thinking Apps + Data on devices, move forward and begin with saying farewell Good Old Desktop, thank you for your services and may you Rest In Peace.