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Camwood present their approach to removing Windows Vista Application Compatibility deployment road-block at WPC 2008:
08/07/2008
Frank Foxall, Camwood CEO, is presenting our approach to removing the Application Compatibility road-block to deploying Windows Vista and discussing actual customer case studies at the Microsoft Worldwide Partner Conference on Thursday 10th July at 2pm in Room 362 CF.
Microsoft World Partner Conference
Camwood publish Application Management guidelines:
03/07/2008
Managing applications and software patches is not a simple undertaking for any organisation. Consider adding to this already difficult process, the complexity of having multiple version of applications, regular software patches and different levels of operating systems...
Download Application Management
Public-sector bodies sing Windows Vista's praises:
02/06/2008
Microsoft's Windows Vista operating system, launched in January 2007, has received a mixed response.
There is also still a strong inclination among the company's user base to cling on to older iterations of Windows because of concerns about Vista's CPU overhead and security.
But Microsoft has wheeled out two public-sector customers who are both upgrading to Vista and happy with the benefits.
Newham Borough Council and Tube Lines, a public-private partnership set up to maintain the infrastructure of the Jubilee, Northern and Piccadilly underground lines in London, are both part way through their respective Vista upgrades.
Both organisations have worked with Camwood, a consultancy that specialises in testing systems for upgrades such as this.
Camwood chief executive Frank Foxall pointed out that one of the additional outcomes of compatibility testing is that it provides a good idea of the presence of any unwanted applications on a system, as well as unused licences.
Tube Lines' head of IT, Adrian Davey, explained that an upgrade to Vista had to have a business case and any changes to infrastructure could not be allowed to impact on hitting profit targets.
In all, Tube Lines requires a 2,500-seat licence, and Davey said the move to Vista would work out as a saving of £500,000 over the life of the operating system. On top of that, because the company's systems estate was streamlined as a result of the testing and upgrade, Davey said he is saving 20 percent on his outsourcing costs.
He said: "It's wasn't a hard negotiation; this upgrade is paying for itself."
The London Borough of Newham is rolling out Vista on a much more limited basis, initially. The first stage of the rollout is taking place in the borough's libraries. PCs used by visitors will be upgraded to Vista and, for Newham's acting chief information officer, Geoff Connell, the upgrade is driven in part by the public's expectations. An increasing number of them will have Vista at home and Newham does not want to be perceived as equipping service points with old software like XP.
Connell said: "There are features in Vista that allow us to turn off units automatically at the end of the day. Energy cost savings will be substantial. We will recoup £50 per PC per year. Mobility is also a big driver. We are hoping to reduce 27 back offices to one."
This last comment illustrates how the benefits accrued by the two organisations come more from better integrating back-end applications through the Vista front end, rather than the operating system itself.
Davey said: "Vista is about an enterprise technology stack that genuinely enables true collaboration across the enterprise — true sharing of information."
Both Davey and Connell praised Vista's ability to facilitate more effective sharing of systems in terms of helping set up shared-services agreements. The opportunity to clean out core systems and have a common user interface for them in Vista, they both said, would make it easier for collaborating local authority organisations to share IT resources.
Both organisations are only part way through their upgrades. Davey said Vista will be fully rolled out throughout Tube Lines by October this year. Connelly said Newham has a longer lead time, and roll out began in August 2007. Specific, targeted areas will see Vista rolled out by August this year, and full roll out will be completed next year.
Clearly, the upgrade to Vista works for these two organisations, which demonstrates the operating system's tangible benefits for a range of public-sector customers.
Whether these benefits can be translated to the private sector remains to be seen. Most private-sector organisations are not quite so customer-facing in terms of their technology strategies. They don't need to be seen to keep their user-interface software up-to-date and they don't have to share IT services. Vista may have to demonstrate other business benefits to cross over to private commerce.
http://news.zdnet.co.uk/software/0,1000000121,39427733,00.htm
Camwood sign partnership deal with ConverterTechnology:
01/05/2008
(M2 PressWIRE Via Acquire Media NewsEdge)
ConverterTechnology, experts in Microsoft Office deployment and migration projects, today announced a new partnership with Camwood, the leading application migration consultancy. Camwood will be using ConverterTechnology's new OfficeConverter 2007 software solution as part of its end-to-end consultancy and deployment offerings. The software will enable Camwood to help large enterprise customers understand the file compatibility challenges involved with application upgrades, recommend best practice, reduce risks, and deliver cost saving file remediation functionality.
Tony Probert, Business Development Director for ConverterTechnology says "Our solution gives Camwood the ability to help UKenterprises more easily manage their upgrades from older versions of Office to Office 2007, ensuring they maximise their business uptime, information availability and data security. Efficient and automated migration processes are things that these companies cannot afford to get wrong."
Camwood provides consultancy based around an application-centric model across all Microsoft products, including Vista, XP, Office, Softgrid, SystemCenter and SharePoint 2007. Many of their customers request help with file migration assessment of Vistaand Office 2007 deployment projects.
Tony Fones, Professional Services Manager of Camwood said: "We deal with a number of corporates with a significant portfolio of applications. The drive is always towards effective application rationalisation to realise benefits of an effectively managed estate, reduction in licensing and business benefits of optimising the support services. Without exception, all of these organisations under-estimate the impact of data and will commonly miss-out on the full business benefits of application rationalisation." He continued: "Adding the software solution from ConverterTechnology to our data migration framework enables us to proactively drive the business benefits. Couple this with our accreditation as a Microsoft Desktop Deployment Planning Services (DDPS) partner, which focuses on removing the deployment challenges of Vistaand Office 2007, we are able to advise and implement a full end-to-end migration programme including the data."
Using OfficeConverter 2007, Camwood will be able to advise their customers on the Microsoft Office data-sets that will run successfully after their upgrade and which data-sets can be consolidated. Files which will not open in the Office 2003 or Office 2007 format are identified by ConverterTechnology's solution and the majority of these will be automatically fixed and converted. For data-sets that have extra challenges, Camwood will provide specific added-value services to remediate the data. Camwood consultants, fully trained in ConverterTechnology's solution, will be able to provide a complete, end-to-end service including initial assessment, governance and rationalisation of data.
Tony Probert concludes: "Our solution is very complimentary to Camwood's core business focus and this new partnership will bring increased value to the services they deliver for Office 2007 deployments."
http://crm.tmcnet.com/news/2008/04/23/3403866.htm
Camwood divides to conquer for 2008 :
11/01/2008
LONDON, January 11 2008 – In order to better serve its current and future customers and to maximise the market potential for AppTitude, Camwood, the leading application migration specialist, today announced that it is to split the company and create two separate businesses. From January 2008, the consulting services company will retain the name Camwood, while a new company called AppDNA will manage the research, development and creation of an indirect sales channel for the AppTitude product, a software solution that automates the application testing requirement for companies migrating to Microsoft Vista.
Camwood has enjoyed tremendous growth over the past year, as an increasing number of organisations migrate to the Windows Vista environment. Explaining the rationale for the restructure, Frank Foxall, CEO of Camwood, said: “This strategy will be central to the on-going success of AppTitude, as it allows both the consultancy services and the software development and sales businesses to play to their respective strengths. It will allow us to commit to the highest level of consultancy service required both pre and post sale, and we will also be able to dedicate focused resources to building, developing and selling the AppTitude product through our partner channel, allowing us to take it to the international market.”
Under Foxall’s direction, Camwood will continue to operate as a consultancy, developing and delivering a comprehensive range of services and solutions to support Microsoft Windows migrations and ongoing application management strategies. Camwood assists businesses to envision, prepare and execute the programmes and changes required to deliver excellence in managing their application environment.
AppDNA, led by Mike Welling, CEO, will take responsibility for developing and selling the AppTitude product, which is used to determine quickly and accurately which applications will work with a new operating system, and which will need remediation effort. Welling said: “AppTitude has been an essential part of the Windows Vista migration programme for many companies. The changes we are making in company structure will provide us with the scope to further develop AppTitude and sell it through our indirect channel sales model. Camwood will be one of several solution providers the we are engaged with that will sell and service AppTitude .”
AppTitude’s automated testing algorithms ensure that an entire organisation’s software portfolio can be tested in days vs. months. The customer receives a visual display of the compatibility issues they face – a green, amber or red light indicates whether an application will migrate without problems, whether it will have some problems, or whether it will not migrate effectively. A detailed report is then supplied to enable the IT team to address the specific problem areas for remediation, with detailed technical information highlighting the necessary ‘fixes’ they need to implement to ensure an application installs and runs correctly under Windows Vista.
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