Delivering the right balance between agility and control

The Optimized Desktop combines the Windows Vista Enterprise and the Microsoft Desktop Optimization Pack to provide powerful technologies that help you secure, efficiently manage, and lower the costs of your organization's desktop infrastructure.

Recent news

• New - Windows Optimized Desktop Scenarios - Solution Accelerator: To address the need for flexibility in management and cost of the desktop, this new Infrastructure planning and design, Windows Optimized Desktop Scenarios relate IT and user business requirements for a flexible, efficient, and managed desktop environment to sets of complementary Microsoft technologies. The guide and supporting tool in this Solution Accelerator use the five standard user scenarios, including Office Worker and Mobile Worker, to map requirements to technologies and help with the selection. Read more here.

• Better Together: Find out how Windows Server 2008 R2 combined with the new Windows 7 technology can help you enhance the security of your systems, streamline your PC management and allow users to be productive regardless of their location. Click here for more information.

• Over the last 4 years, Microsoft has made substantial changes to Windows Client Software Assurance (SA), including investments in a new Enterprise SKU and a number of acquisitions that led to the creation of the Microsoft Desktop Optimization Pack for Software Assurance (MDOP). In light of these changes, customers who previously declined to buy Client SA should re-evaluate their decisions.

  These two products have been evaluated by Gartner:
  Quantifying the Value of Software Assurance for Windows Client (173 KB)
  Quantifying the Value of Microsoft's Desktop Optimization Pack (172 KB)

• We know that some organizations are tempted to skip Windows Vista entirely and wait for the next release, Windows 7, which Microsoft plans to release in late 2009 or early 2010. However, compatibility with Windows Vista is a design goal for Windows 7 so enterprises should feel confident that investments they make in Windows Vista now will carry over to Windows 7.

  The below report was written by Gartner:
  Understand the Risks of Skipping Windows Vista (537 KB)

Enterprise-class Windows

A key component of the Optimized Desktop, Windows Vista Enterprise is the premium business operating system for organizations with multiple PC environments such as mobile workers, office workers, and contract workers. Learn more..

Dynamic desktop management technologies

Management tools such as the Microsoft Desktop Optimization Pack (MDOP) enhance the manageability of Windows, streamline your business, and drive down desktop total cost of ownership (TCO). Learn more.

Virtualization as a key enabler

For customers exploring various deployment models, the Optimized Desktop for Windows provides unique licensing and virtualization technologies. Learn more.

 

Some product features are only available in certain editions of Windows Vista and may require advanced or additional hardware.