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| New AOK achieves 99% success rate in tests for Vista incompatibilities. |
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Following extensive, continuous tests involving thousands of applications and more that 50 organisations, ChangeBASE introduce AOK, a product that is delivering 99% success in solving Vista incompatibilities. This statistic comes from the data derived from independent client test sites that have been collaborating with the ChangeBASE technical team.
“My absolute belief has always been that we could create a product that would be able to achieve this level of success” says Greg Lambert, AOK developer and ChangeBASE CTO “But we needed independent verification and the numbers to prove it, these results unquestionably help prove that belief. The resulting AOK products are beautifully simple and very fast. You load, run and they fix”.
“News of this development has caused something of a stir in the industry,” says John Tate ChangeBASE CEO. “In some early conversations that I have had with potential customers, there is a reaction of cynical disbelief. But then they run the product, see what it does, and the disbelief changes to amazement. We are so confident about the ability of these products that we are inviting individuals from PLC organizations who might be deliberating over migration and compatibility issues to contact us for a free demonstration”.
The AOK product family includes AOK Discovery, AOK Fix It, AOK Business As Usual and Total AOK.
See www.changebase.com for more details and contact nathalie.mancel@changebase.com to arrange a demonstration. |
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| AstraZeneca chooses AOK to smooth global Vista migration |
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AstraZeneca, one of the world's leading pharmaceutical companies with healthcare sales of $23.95 billion and leading positions in sales of gastrointestinal, cardiovascular, neuroscience, respiratory, oncology and infection products has taken the decision to deploy AOK to help its Vista migration programme.
With over 70,000 PCs spread across 60 countries running c. 5,000 applications, the task of migrating to a new operating system is complex.
“One of our biggest challenges is identifying where migration to Vista will cause problems with our applications. The traditional approach is to manually test each application to ensure it will work correctly, then embark upon a lengthy process to package and test the applications for the new environment.
Using ChangeBASE AOK we are able to automate our application review, and identify those applications that would experience a problem on Microsoft Vista.
The AOK portfolio analysis and remediation products (AOK Discovery and AOK Fix It) then allow us to automate much of the manual repackaging,” said the IT Project Manager at AstraZeneca.
NEWS WIRE!
As this article goes to press, we note that AstraZeneca has, to date, assessed and remediated 350 of their 8,000 applications using AOK. AOK was able to deploy 345 of the assessed applications on Vista with 5 identified as RED and undeployable.
Further evidence
that
re-enforces the AOK 99% success rate discussed above. |
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AOK helps accelerate OS upgrade for
Irish Life & Permanent PLC. |
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As part of their WXP SP2 deployment, IL&P is packaging their entire application portfolio into MSI format.
Complex manual validation work had already begun but now the IL&P team
has adopted the ChangeBASE AOK toolset to help them re-validate the packaging that has been done so far and to enforce best practices as well as automate QA testing.
The flexibility and the adaptability of AOK, made it easy to create additional rule sets that are tailored and specific to IL&P’s best practices and QA standards.
“Our IT department is using the ChangeBASE AOK toolset to increase productivity of the packaging activities as well as enforcing our company standards for ITIL compliance.” Said Paul Mahon, Group IT Desktop Services Manager, Irish Life & Permanent PLC. |
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| Global Insurance Group deploys AOK for Microsoft infrastructure optimization. |
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This global client decided to use AOK to help them resolve the compliance and remediation of their applications. The project was undertaken as part of their move to deliver applications from locked environments onto single managed desktops, complementing Zenworks and Wise Package Studio.
The deployment has also helped extend the technology capability of their existing packaging partner.
Conventionally, the discovery task requires 3rd party consultants to validate applications. A manual testing process, that adds considerably to cost and time.
Using ChangeBASE’s automated AOK Discovery tool the team was able to save 40% of the applications already remediated (140 applications) in the first week.
The 2nd step prepared all the other applications. The AOK tool helped identify which of applications the company will package or not, again saving considerable time and money.
ChangeBASE AOK has helped the company achieve its main objective, by validating the application and keeping the packaging process consistent, delivering a reliable single managed desktop.
This means that any combination of applications on desktops will work, improving reliability and reducing support costs.
The Vista Programme Manager said “It is essential for any medium to large company using a managed environment to use ChangeBASE AOK software to give assurance of a consistent process during a Vista migration, complementing their packaging tool and distribution system.
Also, with a managed environment, you fix a problem once and for all, for everyone, not just for one desktop”.
ChangeBASE AOK has given confidence to move from WXP SP1 straight to Vista rather than WXP SP2, which would have demanded at least as much validation work for a much shorter shelf life. |
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| ChangeBASE KOLT forum reveals
key
focus issues |
The last technical forum took place on 17th July at the IOD in London and was supported by Greg Lambert, CTO of ChangeBASE AOK and Nigel Stanley, ChangeBASE Director.
The forum had good support with like-minded individuals sharing their views and concerns.
Key points that were agreed for further consideration were Office 2007, Virtualisation and Microsoft Security release. See below for more details.
Bad app of the month
Main headache for everyone: Office 2007 doesn’t comply.
It requires extensive granular changes when repackaging and in the case of a highly regulated organisation such as Pharmaceutical, these types of changes are difficult to make. For example, there are over 3,000 GPO settings.
ChangeBASE AOK Discovery compatibility assessment tool will help.
How? Please contact sales@changebase.com for a demonstration.
Softgrid virtualisation issues
Softgrid doesn’t take into account the application dependencies and therefore leaves organisations exposed to potential compatibility issues and worse, potential application failures.
For example, how are you going to activate Acrobat reader within Softgrid?
What you would really like to see is a way of defining which application can be streamed and what to do with any issues that are found.
ChangeBASE AOK offers compatibility assessment for MSI’s being deployed with Softgrid.
If you are thinking about Softgrid or are using Softgrid, ChangeBASE AOK would be happy to check for any compatibility issues by running a test on a sample of your applications.
Please contact nathalie.mancel@changebase.com to arrange a free trial.
Microsoft Security release
Two weeks ago, Microsoft delivered an "out of bound" update to the MSXML core services with a major increment in the version of MS07-042. The version information on the update is a major release and all of the core patches are major version incremental.
This update may cause you some problems with your applications when using this security release.
The AOK Business As Usual patch manager (www.changebase.com) will automatically detect this release and notify you within 10 minutes of it being released. You can then run AOK vulnerability assessment and produce a report that will show what part of your estate or dependencies might be affected by the new Microsoft security release.
If this Microsoft security release or any others have affected you in the past, we would like to hear from you. Please contact us for a “health check” on how your applications will behave with this release.
Contact: nathalie.mancel@changebase.com
The forum panel is planning to meet again on 1st November 2007 in London
Please contact nathalie.mancel@changebase.com to reserve your seat as spaces are limited. |
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| Take the AOK Vista compatibility challenge. |
To test the robustness of our AOK offering, ChangeBASE invites you to take up the challenge and test how Vista ready your applications are. This free evaluation will give you the opportunity to find out what needs to be done to get your applications in shape for the migration; a report detailing issues and what to fix will be given to you at the end of the session.
Contact nathalie.mancel@changebase.com for more details. |
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Packaging Event 2007 - 11 Oct 07, Holland.
The premier event for IT Professionals and Repackagers is dedicated to providing the latest technical information and resources for the Repackaging Business.
On October 11th PDS, Microsoft, Symantec, Macrovision and SCC will organize this annual event at the Amsterdam Arena, which will function as a platform for Repackagers, System Administrators and IT Managers. A delegate from ChangeBASE AOK will be at this show. If you would like to have a first hand experience of AOK there contact sales@changebase.com
For event details go to: www.packagingevent.nl
ChangeBASE AOK and Microsoft
October Vista roadshow.
If you are on the fence and thinking “I’ll move to Vista when the others do”. Then the Microsoft Vista Deployment Team and ChangeBASE AOK would like to meet you. During the month of October, Microsoft and ChangeBASE AOK will share with you “Why Move to Vista” and discuss how to avoid pitfalls and learn from the organisations that have already made the first move.
Contact nathalie.mancel@changebase.com to arrange a meeting but please be quick as appointments will be limited. |
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