It looks like MS has finally realized there are operations that want to deploy desktops in as streamlined a method as possible and aren’t the hulking behemoths of OEMs or very large corporate customers.
They are planning on making the Business Desktop Deployment solutions available to all, along with WinPE in the initial Vista release.
The sessions in general were good overviews of the process for install and deployment of Vista and/or Office 2007. The average deployment will have to change:
- are you using administrative install points for Office and not Local Install Source? Get ready to learn about LIS.
- Are you using multicast today? Hope your vendor catches up and releases an add on to Windows Deployment Services, the replacement to RIS, to support it
- Are you using RIS? You should be, it seems
- Did you know about the Desktop Deployment resources that are already available?
Solution Accelerator? Can they cram more buzzwords into it? I hope it has a rich user experience too. One of these days they ought to release Microsoft Gas Pedal. Just floor it and your apps will be so fast and code will write itself.
MS Gas pedal has been renamed the Microsoft Office Enterprise Project Management (EPM) Solution. Amazingly enough, that’s a session in the next timeslot.