Back in October I posted some information about the then forthcoming Desktop Opimisation Pack (Optimization for anyone with a USA spell checker!). I just noticed on Bink today that the pack is now available to download on the MSVL site.
This pack will be of great use to anyone who is considering deploying Windows Vista in the near future. I won’t rehash everything I wrote before … you can read that in my original post. But this pack will aid systems administrators in the deployment and management of their desktop network:
- Application deployment will become a breeze where you will no longer have to worry about applications working on Vista or with each other.
- Group Policy management can become more structured and controlled.
- Detailed information (even more than SMS can do!) about the deployed applications can be gathered.
- Helpdesk will be armed with desktop diagnostics and repair tools.
Each of this suites is a result of Microsoft acquisitions of best of breed, innovative solutions in the last year: Softricity, Winternals, AssetMetrix and DesktopStandard.
Here’s the bad news. This pack is only available to software assurance customers. Considering how PO’d many people are with SA after the XP "experience" I don’t think many will re-up this time around, despite the promise of a new release of Windows Vista "R2" in two years time. This will also alienate customers who cannot afford or justify SA, probably leaving them on XP or W2K for many more years. And as far as I know (I could be wrong here), the Desktop Optimisation Pack still will cost around $10/seat for SA customers.
We’ve seen Microsoft change some licensing terms for the benefit of customers in recent years, e.g. Virtual Server and Virtual PC so I really hope they change their minds about restricting this pack to SA customers only.