I've used ZENworks since it became a product, I was a v1.0 beta tester.
Before you write off Novell completely, consider the following:
1) I have two helpdesk staff supporting 40 locations and 500 users across the US. 2) I have no other IT support outside our headquarters. 3) I can have someone whose PC catches fire, sit down at any other PC in the building and be back up and running in 5 minutes. With no intervention.
This is why you want to distribute per user, or entitle individuals to applications. You're leveraging the fact that identity is meaningful.
4) My helpdesk can reimage any PC back to known good, off-network, in less than 30 minutes, anywhere in my company.
This is why you want ZEN in particular. It provides a cohesive link between individual, PC, and applications, and allows you to centrally manage all of them.
Spend some time doing serious network administration at a big company, and you'll probably wish for ZEN or something like it. "Automate Everything", one of the core rules of system administration.
For those of us who support custom-developed applications, or any application developed exclusively for the Microsoft platform, there is a big problem with the way in which Microsoft attracted developers.
In essence, they provided overly simplified development platforms that allow complete idiots to develop code that works on Windows, and Windows only. Many of the people developing applications in Visual Basic, etc. have no business doing so, as they lack the fundamental skillsets required (processes, best practices, etc).
The further problem is that once a company has begun to put business information into a Microsoft-centric application, they immediately become ensnared in the spider web that is Microsoft licensing. The more data they put in, the more trapped they become. Once fully enveloped, they have to change directions any time Microsoft mandates it. Witness Exchange 5.5 to Exchange 2000, the advent of Active Directory as a requirement for many of their applications, etc. The fact that they de-supported a mail server meant that the upgrade to the new version of mail server involved upgrading every other server in your environment. Anyone who thinks MS won't do this again is nuts, this is how they drive revenue.
Ballmer very recently proclaimed that Microsoft needs a better sales message (presumably, hit the customers with a hammer until they upgrade) as people aren't buying the new versions of their products. They've become so feature laden and so impossible to maintain that nobody wants to fight with it.
In short, developers haven't chosen Microsoft as their platform of choice on it's technical merits. They choose it because it's easy. Any bozo can put up a Microsoft network, its easy. It isn't good or cheap, but it is fast. The market of these bozo's is pretty large, and all of them need software, so naturally, you develop to the biggest audience.
Any developer who does NOT develop an application to be portable between platforms, in this day and age, isn't worth the powder it would take to blow them to kingdom come. Laura DiDio's comment about healthcare companies not being able to go to Linux because of their applications highlights this point. If I were a developer looking for a new market, that's where I would be. Healthcare companies apparently have more money than sense.
IT services are easy to do badly, and difficult to do well. Microsoft is the equivalent of bleeding heart liberals, in that they empower total niwits to become IT professionals. The result? 30% of my companies incoming internet e-mail is infected with some form of virus exploiting a Microsoft vulnerability. It's been this way since February. There are a lot of morons in the world with public IP addresses connected to Microsoft servers.
The only thing that can help is to create a seamless / instant, or at least very pain-free migration path from Windows to Linux. Smart developers will be able to see that if the market looks to be shifting, they will need to be there when it finally does. If you have to write a new version of your application, why wouldn't you use any of the available open development platforms and make it cross-platform? Use Mono! Use C#! (Please, don't use Java). Use the web!
I would be willing to bet a paycheck that if a simple majority of developers offered cross-platform capable versions of their products, their customers would abandon Microsoft at the earliest opportunity (lease expiration, version upgrade, etc).
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I've used ZENworks since it became a product, I was a v1.0 beta tester.
Before you write off Novell completely, consider the following:
1) I have two helpdesk staff supporting 40 locations and 500 users across the US.
2) I have no other IT support outside our headquarters.
3) I can have someone whose PC catches fire, sit down at any other PC in the building and be back up and running in 5 minutes. With no intervention.
This is why you want to distribute per user, or entitle individuals to applications. You're leveraging the fact that identity is meaningful.
4) My helpdesk can reimage any PC back to known good, off-network, in less than 30 minutes, anywhere in my company.
This is why you want ZEN in particular. It provides a cohesive link between individual, PC, and applications, and allows you to centrally manage all of them.
Spend some time doing serious network administration at a big company, and you'll probably wish for ZEN or something like it. "Automate Everything", one of the core rules of system administration.
For those of us who support custom-developed applications, or any application developed exclusively for the Microsoft platform, there is a big problem with the way in which Microsoft attracted developers.
In essence, they provided overly simplified development platforms that allow complete idiots to develop code that works on Windows, and Windows only. Many of the people developing applications in Visual Basic, etc. have no business doing so, as they lack the fundamental skillsets required (processes, best practices, etc).
The further problem is that once a company has begun to put business information into a Microsoft-centric application, they immediately become ensnared in the spider web that is Microsoft licensing. The more data they put in, the more trapped they become. Once fully enveloped, they have to change directions any time Microsoft mandates it. Witness Exchange 5.5 to Exchange 2000, the advent of Active Directory as a requirement for many of their applications, etc. The fact that they de-supported a mail server meant that the upgrade to the new version of mail server involved upgrading every other server in your environment. Anyone who thinks MS won't do this again is nuts, this is how they drive revenue.
Ballmer very recently proclaimed that Microsoft needs a better sales message (presumably, hit the customers with a hammer until they upgrade) as people aren't buying the new versions of their products. They've become so feature laden and so impossible to maintain that nobody wants to fight with it.
In short, developers haven't chosen Microsoft as their platform of choice on it's technical merits. They choose it because it's easy. Any bozo can put up a Microsoft network, its easy. It isn't good or cheap, but it is fast. The market of these bozo's is pretty large, and all of them need software, so naturally, you develop to the biggest audience.
Any developer who does NOT develop an application to be portable between platforms, in this day and age, isn't worth the powder it would take to blow them to kingdom come. Laura DiDio's comment about healthcare companies not being able to go to Linux because of their applications highlights this point. If I were a developer looking for a new market, that's where I would be. Healthcare companies apparently have more money than sense.
IT services are easy to do badly, and difficult to do well. Microsoft is the equivalent of bleeding heart liberals, in that they empower total niwits to become IT professionals. The result? 30% of my companies incoming internet e-mail is infected with some form of virus exploiting a Microsoft vulnerability. It's been this way since February. There are a lot of morons in the world with public IP addresses connected to Microsoft servers.
The only thing that can help is to create a seamless / instant, or at least very pain-free migration path from Windows to Linux. Smart developers will be able to see that if the market looks to be shifting, they will need to be there when it finally does. If you have to write a new version of your application, why wouldn't you use any of the available open development platforms and make it cross-platform? Use Mono! Use C#! (Please, don't use Java). Use the web!
I would be willing to bet a paycheck that if a simple majority of developers offered cross-platform capable versions of their products, their customers would abandon Microsoft at the earliest opportunity (lease expiration, version upgrade, etc).