AppSense Expedites Windows 7 Migration Without User Disruption
AppSense, the people-centric computing company, in combination with its partners, offers solutions to help organizations large and small, implement a seamless Windows 7 Migration before Windows XP’s end of life date on April 8, 2014. Utilizing the combined power of DesktopNow and DataNow, AppSense enables companies to effortlessly gather all user related persona and data assets, centralize them and stream the assets back into any new desktop without user disruption.
Additionally, new online whitepapers including “Windows XP EoL: The Risk of Not Migrating” and “Windows XP EoL: Implications and Cost” are available along with a dedicated Windows 7 Migration Use Case to help organizations understand more about the support costs and security risks of not migrating in time.“AppSense’s people-centric approach to IT services, in combination with its innovative and proven technology, enables our customers to separate users from the operating system and manage them independently across all of our Microsoft platforms, both physical, and virtual,” said David Rodger, Windows Client Commercial Lead at Microsoft UK. “This further enables IT departments to move their IT estate to Windows 7 or 8. We believe our customers will benefit greatly from working with our Desktop Enablement Partners, especially as many are looking to move to the latest version of Windows in the coming months.”
Common Challenges of Windows 7 Migration
A poll in a recent Ovum webinar revealed that 54% of respondents saw complexity as the biggest barrier to successful migration and adoption of Windows 7. Managing multiple variables across various devices for thousands of users can be complex, unless the proper plans and solutions are in place.The migration from Windows XP to Windows 7 is fraught with technical, logistical and operational challenges, including among many others:
- The large investment in applications that need to be assessed and planned for
- The complexity of remediating application compatibility issues
- The expense of migrating user data and settings
- The endpoint devices are often massively distributed, often across an entire country in various locations
- User downtime during the day is not possible. Migrations must occur after hours typically at higher hourly contract rates.
- The complexity of including desktop virtualization and optimization as part of the project
Aside from the lower operating cost savings associated with managing Windows 7 versus Windows XP, AppSense can further increase operational and capital cost savings during the course of the migration. AppSense’s approach to Windows management and migration has been validated with the recent Forrester TEI Impact Report underscoring how customers utilizing DesktopNow are able to see a 284% ROI with a payback of 5 months – inclusive of migration objectives.“Today, many organizations have yet to migrate to Windows 7 and current estimates place the installed base of Windows XP at approximately 45% market share. For those organizations that haven’t migrated, they face significant business ramifications if they don’t complete the migration in time,” said Carl Cross, Senior Vice President, Sales and General Manager of Americas of AppSense. “The cost of custom support agreements will potentially cost millions of dollars. AppSense is focused on helping organizations understand both migration and post migration desktop optimization savings that counter staggering custom support costs associated with not migrating to Windows 7.”