This podcast features VMware Desktop Specialist Todd Dayton in an interview that dives into the architecture behind VMware Virtual Desktop Infrastructure, applicable use cases and tips on how to get started.

The Server Virtualization Blog has a great and concise explanation of the VM value proposition in a recent post by Bridget Botelho, including links to case studies.

Tags: enterprise computing, mobility, IT, VMware, virtualization, Virtual Desktop, data center

A virtual desktop is one where all computing happens remotely. It contains a very simple screen that allows you to replace the heavy workstations that are currently being used by the majority of companies. Virtual desktops provide a “virtual” space, in which the user can place all their application software. The most compelling argument that vendors use to convince organizations to buy in to this solution is the fact that all the data and applications are in one secure location. Someone can still manage all of their employee’s desktops, even when the computer is off.

The recent trend has been for companies to move to Windows Vista. This allows an organization to keep the same hardware, which is a viable solution to cut costs. So, why are some people hesitant to invest in this? The answer seems to be that virtual desktops are not a “one size fits all” solution - but there are ways for easy implementation, which is where BearingPoint comes in. We assist with the pain points or doubts that an organizations goes through. It is our goal to assist with the development of a strategic roadmap that brings the client all the way through the deployment. We bring our expertise to the table to ensure the transition is smooth and that our clients are on their way to cost-saving success.

Tags: BearingPoint, Laurent Mandorla, virtual desktops, virtualization

It’s no secret that China has come a long way in a short time — from being a country known for manufacturing cheap products for export to being, potentially, the next great IT superpower. National Science Board figures show that in 1994 there were only seven U.S. companies doing research in China. Ten years later, that number had risen to more than 500. Gartner analysts James Popkin and Partha Iyengar wrote, in their 2007 book I.T. and the East, that the world “will witness the birth of a real IT superpower if government restrictions are loosened and the Chinese instinctive talent for entrepreneurialism continues to be encouraged.”

It’s against this backdrop that the Intel Developer Forum in Shanghai, April 2 and 3, 2008, takes on extra significance. China now supplies the talent, within the country, to conduct advanced research in chip design. At this year’s IDF in Shanghai, Intel will provide an update on new technologies and features that enable devices with better performance, less power, more mobility, and lower cost.

If you’re not attending the event in person, be sure to follow online at Intel’s IDF pages and check in here for more video podcast coverage.

Tags: new processor, ultra-mobile, Intel, mobility computing, UMPC, mobile Internet devices, notebooks, desktops, netbooks, net-tops, Atom, 45nm technology, Penryn, Core 2 Duo, IDF, National Science Board, James Popkin, Partha Iyengar, I.T. and the East, Intel Developer Forum

Tags: Mike Ferron-Jones, Intel, Emerging Models, virtual hosted desktops, blade models

Tags: Intel, Catherine Spence, enterprise architect, IT Research and Technology, compute models, streaming, virtual hosted desktop, On-demand software, Software as a Service

In this video podcast, Intel Senior Business Marketing Manager Justin Van Buren, Wipro Chief Application Architect Patrick Kalaher, Wipro Architect Timothy Morey, and Intel’s own Josh Hilliker discuss the technology and its implications for business with PodTech’s Jason Lopez.

Check out the Intel vPro Technology ROI Estimator

Some images provided with permission via Creative Commons by Brian Floto, Ben Donley, Mo Riza and Megan Ann, via Attribution 2.0 Generic; Kyle Flood, chapleauportal, Tammy Green and Julien Hourbrechts via Attribution-Share Alike 2.0 Generic; and Gailjadehamilton and Murtaza Gulamali, via Attribution-No Derivative Works 2.0 Generic

Tags: Intel vPro Technology, IT efficiency, PC refresh program, hardware complexity, Wipro, desktop management, Justin Van Buren, Patrick Kalaher, Timothy Morey, Josh Hilliker, ROI Estimator

Tags: James Governor, Richard Barrington, green computing, WEEE, Sun

Learn more about HP server blades

Tags: Tom Petry

Related Stories:
IntelBusiness

Tags: Intel, vPro, mobile PC, Centrino, mobility, Lenovo, EDS, IntelBusiness

Tags: Vijay Pullur, Dekoh

Transcript:

John Gallant: Hi, and welcome to Stories from the Trenches: The Change Artists Spotlight. I’m your host, John Gallant, and today we’re continuing our discussion with LaVerne Council, the CIO of Johnson & Johnson.

You know one of the most important opportunities for a company as large and as distributed as J&J is around knowledge sharing, and during our discussion you mentioned a pretty innovative knowledge sharing system that’s in place. And I was hoping that you could expand on that a little, tell us a little bit more about that.

LC: We actually implemented a product that will allow anyone to ask a question, and then based on folks that have given us access to their email or access to them, we will then begin the process of really data mining for answers to that question. And as was mentioned, it really did help us solve a very hairy issue for one of our products, and it just so happens that one of the associates had completed his thesis in college on that very topic, and they weren’t in the same sector, they weren’t in the same company, but through the use of this very sophisticated search technique, we were able to really come back with answers. So, we have now connected researchers from all over the world to information that they’re willing to open up and share with each other to answer some very, very tough questions. And it is based on some very sophisticated search capability. It has changed the scope of who researchers have to go to to have questions asked and answered, and it’s really creating a more robust community.

JG: Now LaVerne, one of the things I know that’s very important at J&J is the J&J credo, the philosophy that drives the company. And a question that came in from one of our viewers over the web is how would you describe how IT employees at J&J make a difference in the lives of their customers and their community?

LC: That’s an interesting question. The credo is the core value set within Johnson & Johnson, and I think it is what makes Johnson & Johnson a very different company and a special company, and people here don’t talk about it sort of nonchalantly. It becomes a core value set. And so when I think about the folks in technology and IT, I think about people that don’t just try to deliver projects, but they try to deliver the best that they can to their business leaders, and they’re trying to do it because ultimately they’re concerned about the patient and being able to help a discovery be made faster or being able to make sure that when that kid needs that cold medicine it’s available for them. People really take it to heart. And one of the things that really stood out to me is every year Johnson & Johnson puts out a very large brochure - probably as big as our annual report - on our community activities around the world. And you see in it the number of people that are volunteering their time and really getting involved in the community and making a difference, and in fact, we have a volunteer web location where people can go and find out where needs are needed, and you go and you see the cafeteria, and there’s always something going on where people are asking for volunteers or giving blood or just sharing amongst themselves. And so it’s a very giving environment, and the IT organization is no different. The people within the organization understand their purpose here. They’re very purposeful and get excited with every new product launch, get excited every time they hear that the company has made a great donation. When we had the new drug Prezista - which is a new HIV drug - there was a lot of elation over that drug. The conversation wasn’t about being a blockbuster, it was about helping people and changing a very debilitating disease in the world and helping on the continent of Africa. So, incredibly, incredibly involved. It’s natural. It comes from the heart, and it’s in the IT organization, as well as the whole organization.

JG: Do you see technology, or perhaps talk about how technology is making a dramatic difference in the development of new pharmaceuticals and other products.

LC: Oh it definitely is. I mean, there are things that without technology we couldn’t do, from everything from how we handle the CAD machines that draw and cut out and do the different things on our stents to ensuring that the right batches are made of certain products and the right constitutions are put together. It’s beyond the point of where you want to have any kind of human error, and you need to be able to ensure that you can track it, and that’s where technology comes in. But it goes even further when you look at discovery and being able to understand different kinds of molecular structures and … it’s fascinating to me as I start to look at technology that now takes - there are things that would take us a year - and this is no exaggeration - a year in previous ways that we would analyze different molecules. The things we can do now from a year - 365 days - now we can do it in 15 days. And so that means the opportunity for the scientist to try different kinds of combinations and see if they can come with the right one. Time goes down. And now from 15 days to a day. The opportunities are just huge. And so if you can get the right information to the right people and give them a chance to - finding a discovery, as many scientists will tell you, sometimes it’s hit and miss. And so you’ve just got to keep hitting. And if you can shorten that time, you know they’re going to get more hits if they could just get more chances to try. And so that’s really what technology is about, is creating that opportunity to get more credibility in information and give them more opportunity to have more hits, and just keep having more tries.

JG: I know in support of that, that J&J has made a big commitment to grid computing and that’s something - grid really isn’t a technology that’s made a great leap into the commercial side. Talk a little bit about your experiences and successes with grid.

LC: Frankly, grid is sort of a - if you think about it - a common sense view of using assets when they’re not being used, and tying desktops and laptops together to create, really, a super computer capability for processing when folks aren’t using their systems. And, frankly, just on the topic that I was just mentioning, the grid computing really has changed in a revolutionary way how we do molecular discovery and giving us a chance for those tries, for those hits. And it’s interesting that you don’t really have to go out and buy more hardware to make grid work, it’s just how you link and utilize your computer and the processing power of the various computers and assets that you have around your business. We have extensively used grid computing in our R&D business. We are continuing to expand that beyond that and expand it globally, but it has been a major success here.

JG: LaVerne, I think this is a great question from one of our emailers - what would you say is J&J’s most significant IT challenge today?

LC: You know, I think for us, because we are in a fairly complex environment, and frankly, support really three very different business models, it’s hard to culminate it to one. We’re not just a consumer healthcare company. We’re not just a medical device company and diagnostics. We’re not just a pharmaceutical or nutritionals company. We’re all three. And so it’s hard to culminate it to one thing. I think from a technology point of view, though, that probably the biggest issue we’re going to have to address is how do we best leverage our knowledge across the enterprise and around the world, and how do we do this in a way that we increase our capabilities and increase our solutions usage and reusage in various areas that we hadn’t thought about before around the world? We’re a global company and it’s really important, I think, from a technology point of view, that we stay with the business, but also get ahead of the business in helping allay the infrastructure that’s needed to drive to some of these new breakthroughs that I think will be coming in the next five to 10 years. So, probably our biggest issue is just being global, acting global, thinking global, and figuring out how to get that best global leverage.

JG: LaVerne, one of our emailers has asked, ‘What role do you see for J&J in providing a means for electronic healthcare records?’ Obviously, a great number of people concerned about the state of the healthcare industry in the U.S. and potential behind electronic healthcare records. What is J&J’s role there?

LC: It’s an interesting one, because as a healthcare company, we want to ensure that the right information is available to support the patient at all times. And as you know, our credo starts out with the doctors, the nurses and the patients being critical to us. And so as we have been looking at the whole area of medical alignment in technology and our whole health information technology initiatives here, it’s not just about electronic healthcare records with us, it’s more about the whole efficacy and ensuring that the right information is available at the right time for the patient. So I think our role is really more around aligning to ensure not only that the right information is there, but the privacy of that patient is protected, that they are getting the information that’s germane to their needs, and they’re getting it at the right time. And that as a manufacturer and a researcher, we’re sharing with the parties what they need to know in order to make this a useful process for everyone involved. Frankly, our role should be that people can get what they need as quickly as possible, as effectively as possible and increase that process flow. And I think if everyone looks at electronic healthcare records, we’re really trying to focus on better information getting to the provider as quickly as possible and really eliminating the use of a lot of paper and really eliminating opportunities for mistakes. And so our role is sharing and sharing what we know and being a part of the solution.

JG: LaVerne, I want to switch and focus a little bit on you personally in your role as CIO. You’ve had a great career leading up to the CIO role, but what’s different about being a CIO? What’s different from what you had envisioned going into the role?

LC: Well, you know, I think every job, especially as you aspire and move through different levels in the corporation, your role changes every time, and so does your complexity. I think really what’s different is that all eyes are on you. Generally, what happens is you might run a group or a department, and your team knows you and your peers know you, but at the end of the day, as the CIO, people really are expecting you to be the visionary and the core leader and be the role model for what the organization is trying to project in information technology. And I think it’s a critical role, from the vantage point of not only are you the leader of a large group of very, very bright people, but you’re also a business leader in a corporation that has a lot of complexity. And assets - you have a responsibility in that role as well. So, you end up wearing many hats. You end up having to think about things broader than just the project or the team that you have and how you fit and how you’re going to make the organization better, not just in what your role is as a department lead, but what your role is as an officer and as an executive in the corporation.

JG: LaVerne, thanks for joining us.

LC: Hey, thank you. I really appreciate talking to you again, John.

JG: Thank you for tuning into this podcast. If you want to hear more from LaVerne Council, please listen to Part I of this two-part series. For more Stories from the Trenches, or to learn more about HP Change Artists, please go to www.hp.com/changeartists. For HP Change Artists, I’m John Gallant.

Tags: LaVerne Council, Johnson & Johnson, John Gallant

(more…)

Tags: Claire Hogikyan, Pfizer, Documentum

More information at:
Symantec.com

Transcript:
Host: Allen Drummer
Guest: Robert Taylor - Fulton County

Announcer
You are listening to a Symantec Podcast powered by PodTech.

Allen Drummer
Welcome to another Symantec Podcast, this is Allen Drummer, a senior writer at Novaho (ph) Company representing Symantec. We’re about to take look inside another Symantec customer’s business to help you get better results from your own business. Today, we’ll focus on the Fulton County, Georgia Government. This 7,000 employee organization started using the Windows Vista operating system as a TAP user. The IT team protects Vista with Symantec Antivirus Corporate Edition, and simplifies its deployment and management with Symantec Ghost Solutions Suite. Here to give us some of his key learnings and best practices is, Robert Taylor, Chief Information Officer and Director of Information Technology for Fulton County. Thank you for joining us Robert.

Robert Taylor - Fulton County
My pleasure.

Allen Drummer
Robert, will you give us a brief picture of Fulton County and your IT challenges serving it?

Robert Taylor - Fulton County
Fulton County, of course is located in Georgia. We have over 400 buildings of which, 225 of them have technology and users inside that we have to provide support. The largest city in Fulton County is the city of Atlanta. We have 7,000 employees supported by a staff of 145 IT professionals.

Allen Drummer
When Windows Vista is fully operational in your county, what advantages might it bring your work force?

Robert Taylor - Fulton County
The most important part we see is enhanced security.

Allen Drummer
Well, Robert many people don’t realize that Windows Vista operating system does not include virus protection. If a business is deploying Vista, why should it add Symantec Antivirus Corporate Edition?

Robert Taylor - Fulton County
I look at security as not being a single solution; and I go with the premise that a piece of plywood is a lot stronger than just a regular board because of the layer concept. And so I’m building this multi-tiered security plywood for Fulton County. So, the Symantec Antivirus product is just complimentary of the security elements within Vista.

Allen Drummer
What are the overall results you’ve been noticing with Symantec Antivirus?

Robert Taylor - Fulton County
My system is heck of a lot more stable; we have had almost no incidences of viruses within our system, nothing coming down.

Allen Drummer
How can you — are there ways to measure the value of Symantec Antivirus to your organization?

Robert Taylor - Fulton County
We have been able to measure the impact of not having antivirus in place. Back in 2001, we were impacted tremendously with the Nimda virus, and it resulted us — costing us approximately million dollars, something that we have been able to avoid since that point in time because we have had antivirus in place.

Allen Drummer
Okay, you used Ghost Solution Suite to simplify Systems Management and will soon upgrade to Ghost 2.0. How is Ghost valuable?

Robert Taylor - Fulton County
Ghost is primarily utilized as we go in and install new PCs that we — again we copy their data files and things from their old PC, and put it over into the new one.

Allen Drummer
Ghost 2.0, will let you take hardware and software inventory from one central screen across any location, across your whole organization. How would this help you?

Robert Taylor - Fulton County
Within Fulton County, we have PCs scattered across 400 buildings, and one of the most challenging jobs we have is making sure that we know what is on those PCs and that we — our licenses are compliant. This enables us to go out and identify where those PCs are and what is running on them.

Allen Drummer
Ghost allows you to multicast to 100’s of machines at once. How might this benefit you?

Robert Taylor - Fulton County
Obviously, with patches, the quicker we get it out to the individual desktop, the more quickly we are protected.

Allen Drummer
Ghost 2.0 lets you conduct secure retirement of systems, wiping disk clean to Department of Defence standards. How will this help you?

Robert Taylor - Fulton County
At Fulton County, we replace approximately a thousand to 1,500 units on an annual basis. We have been destroying the disk drives; what this enables to do is wipe the disk drives clean, keep the unit working, and sell that unit back to the public, and even we get only $10 per unit for 1,000 units that equals to $10,000 annually, that we are able to save and return back to the citizens of Fulton County.

Allen Drummer
Overall, how would you sum up the value that Symantec has brought Fulton County?

Robert Taylor - Fulton County
The value Symantec has brought to the County is immeasurable because of the fact that it provides my 7,000 users stability. IT has become a commodity for them; it’s just like they walk into room and turn on the switch and the lights come on.

Allen Drummer
You’ve received a dozen awards in the past few years including “Top 100 CIO”, by CIO Magazine and “Premier 100 IT Leader” by Computerworld. What do you view as your most important accomplishment?

Robert Taylor - Fulton County
I came to Fulton County in August 2000 inheriting a IT environment based on 1980s technology. We’ve grown over the past 6 years to become a world class organization. However, my budget has been — remained flat. And to have made the transition from where we were to we are now utilizing the same annual budget has been my and my team’s greatest accomplishment, and this has been achieved through partnering with organizations that I can count on such as Symantec and Microsoft.

Allen Drummer
Thank you for joining us Robert. To learn more about Symantec Solutions for the Windows Vista operating system, visit http://www.symantec.com/vista. This wraps up another look at the difference Symantec Solutions make in providing security and availability for total Windows protection.

Copyright ©2006 PodTech.net. All rights reserved. Privacy policy

Tags: data center, Blackberry, Symantec, AntiVirus, Ghost Solutions, Microsoft Vista, Symantec

By the way, it’s tough to get a hold of Sean, because he’s a pretty busy guy. (his titles: executive vice president, general manager of the sales marketing group, and chief sales and marketing officer for Intel. And it’s the week before CES….). His schedule makes getting him for a sit-down interview a big challenge. I caught him in the hallway, and the simple fact of having a camera in my pocket made this podcast possible. The quality is fine for the content, and it’s not all that long ago that this wouldn’t have been possible.

Transcript:
Host: John Furrier - PodTech
Guest: Sean Maloney - Intel

John Furrier - PodTech
We’re here with Sean Maloney, the Chief Sales and Marketing Officer of Intel. In the hallway right next to the elevator, we just did a 15-16 minutes podcast about all the cool stuff that’s going at CES. We’re talking about, before, the podcast about HD. Tell us what’s going on in you mind, in your view about the whole HD phenomenon and video and all that good stuff.

Sean Maloney - Intel
I think what we’re doing here is typical of what I think is going to be a big breakthrough. If you think about the history of video and computers, the first video came out in the early 90s, kind of, on a tiny little postage stamp pictures; probably 50 years after video came on to TVs. You think about the DVD, and DVDs came out first of all with that kind of content played on TVs and then caught up later on notebooks and desktops. Now, what you’re seeing is HD quality through devices like this.

They’re going to reach probably the mass market even faster than HD or Blu-ray because of the viral and explosive growth that you’ve on video on the Internet now. So, I think for the first time, user-generated content is going to be at the same or higher quality than professional content and put the production standards off to one side, but just the image quality you’re going to see an explosion of beautiful image quality through devices like this and that will had a profound impact not just on hardware, not just on PCs, but on the whole of the electronics industry.

John Furrier - PodTech
But, hell, we’re in the hallway here at Intel. You’re a tough guy to get a hold of, you’ve got a busy schedule. I got my handheld, I pulled it out of my pocket, we are dong a quick interview, that’s phenomenal; but we’ve talked also about the opportunities, you’ve talked about software. Talk about to the people out there developing, entrepreneurs, software developers, hardware developers, people who’re innovating; what do you see happening with this new phenomenon, user-generated video, the new platform, the network, the Internet mobility, what are their opportunities as entrepreneurs?

Sean Maloney - Intel
Oh! I think that over the next two-to-three years you could imagine a world where almost everybody above a certain income level is going to have high-def cameras. Everybody will have notebook devices, and the global opportunity and I mean global opportunity there for software developers is very significant. I’d be weary about doing stuff that isn’t thinking globally because as you know all of these trends in the computer industry all set globally.

John Furrier - PodTech
Talk about TV, Daytime TV. The notebooks now replacing Daytime TV for people at work and a mobile environment is IPTV is going to be here sooner than later and we’re doing video now. What’s your view on that?

Sean Maloney - Intel
John, you might have comment earlier wrong that the PC is the new TV during the day. I think that’s a profound comment and it’s true. The issue is going to be how much can that spread out into the evening, and the rate of change of the Internet now is much, much faster than the rate of change in conventional media and one year on the Internet is equivalent to ten years in conventional media. Even with the conventional media industry guys waking up to that over the last 12 year. They are still chasing a moving target. So, I’d bet on the new entrant.

John Furrier - PodTech
The media business is not used to moving as fast as the computer business, as you’ve just mentioned. Talk about — as the head of the Intel Sales and Marketing and their products. What’s going to happen this year for the whole of 2007?

Sean Maloney - Intel
Well, from a marketing point-of-view, if we want to get messages across the people, we use the full blend of media. We’re still using TV to get an emotional connection to people. If you want to get an emotional connection, globally TV is probably still the way to go. At some point in the next three years — that may well become unraveled, in which case there is going to be a further move of ad dollars over to the PC. I think that will depend on how quickly the TV industry responds to this.

John Furrier - PodTech
Sean Maloney here in the hallway at Intel, (Inaudible) have to get some guys over there (Inaudible) Ken, and Darrel for the PodTech at the elevators. And where is Paul Otellini, can we go up into his office? Sean thanks so much for the video.

Sean Maloney - Intel
Thanks John.

Copyright ©2006 PodTech.net. All rights reserved. Privacy policy

Tags: Adobe, Acrobat 8, Acrobat Connect

“In his keynote, Vice President and General Manager of Intel’s Digital Home Group, Don MacDonald, will discuss his vision on how to create compelling new experiences that consumers will want. These new experiences require the seamless interaction of services and devices based on industry standards. Don will specifically focus on Intel’s next generation of Intel Viiv Technology based consumer PCs (both desktops and notebooks), the digital television, networked media platforms (such as set-top boxes) and handhelds. He will outline how Intel’s platform solutions in these market segments are going to transform the way we live, play and work… and how developers can take advantage of these amazing opportunities.”

“In his keynote, Vice President and General Manager of Intel’s Digital Home Group, Don MacDonald, will discuss his vision on how to create compelling new experiences that consumers will want. These new experiences require the seamless interaction of services and devices based on industry standards. Don will specifically focus on Intel’s next generation of Intel Viiv Technology based consumer PCs (both desktops and notebooks), the digital television, networked media platforms (such as set-top boxes) and handhelds. He will outline how Intel’s platform solutions in these market segments are going to transform the way we live, play and work… and how developers can take advantage of these amazing opportunities.”

“In his keynote, Vice President and General Manager of Intel’s Digital Home Group, Don MacDonald, will discuss his vision on how to create compelling new experiences that consumers will want. These new experiences require the seamless interaction of services and devices based on industry standards. Don will specifically focus on Intel’s next generation of Intel Viiv Technology based consumer PCs (both desktops and notebooks), the digital television, networked media platforms (such as set-top boxes) and handhelds. He will outline how Intel’s platform solutions in these market segments are going to transform the way we live, play and work… and how developers can take advantage of these amazing opportunities.”

“In his keynote, Vice President and General Manager of Intel’s Digital Home Group, Don MacDonald, will discuss his vision on how to create compelling new experiences that consumers will want. These new experiences require the seamless interaction of services and devices based on industry standards. Don will specifically focus on Intel’s next generation of Intel Viiv Technology based consumer PCs (both desktops and notebooks), the digital television, networked media platforms (such as set-top boxes) and handhelds. He will outline how Intel’s platform solutions in these market segments are going to transform the way we live, play and work… and how developers can take advantage of these amazing opportunities.”