The End User Experience: The Working End User

Speaker: Andrew Cooke

Kyle LeRoy: Hello, and welcome to today’s presentation, ‘The End User Experience: The Working End User’. My name is Kyle LeRoy, and I am the moderator for today’s presentation. Before we begin the presentation, I would like to review a few items with you. The slides for this presentation will be pushed to your screen automatically. If you have any questions throughout the presentation, you can type it in the ‘Ask A Question’ area located on the right side of the viewing console and they will be addressed at the end of the presentation. If you have any difficulty reading or viewing slides, there is an ‘Enlarge Slide’ button that you can click on, which is located just below the slides. And if you experience any technical difficulties with this presentation, there is a ‘Help’ link that you click on over in the lower right-hand corner of your screen. With that being said, I am now going to turn things over to Andy Cooke to begin the presentation.

By Andrew Cooke

Andrew Cooke: Thank you, Kyle. Here we go. Thank you for taking the time out to listen to this brief session that we are going to through. I am going to be talking today

about the End User, something that ultimately all of us are trying to look after are our end users. Does not matter whether we are the supplier, does not matter whether we are the customer that is receiving goods, we are all end users in this world and obviously what we trying to do is to look at the end user and actually think about how they work today.

� Let’s look at a typical worker◦ Typically use multiple computers at home and work

◦ Often carry 2 mobile phones

◦ Different computing environments

◦ Workers ever increasing skills, creates higher demands for business computing

So if we think about your typical user and the way in which they go about their daily business, they have obviously got multiple computers, they have got computers at home, they have got computers in the office, there is maybe Windows XP at home, there might be Windows Vista at the office, there is laptops, there is mobiles. So there is a lot of different computers and terminals that people are having to use and access on a daily basis. You know these differences really stop to create challenges for our workers. There is one way of doing something at home, they come to the office and there is another way of doing it. Called for environments are looking more and more to lock down their computing platforms and what you find is that as workers become more familiar with operating computers at home, they want to start to do those same things in the office environment.

� End User◦ Multiple ways to achieve the same tasks at home and work

◦ Forced to use different operating systems

◦ Corporate ‘build’ lockdown and Citrix cause even more environment variations

� Business◦ Matching end user expectations

◦ Reduce support calls

◦ Reduce costs

So we need to be thinking about what are the challenges? What are the challenges around a business today with an end user? As I said there are multiple ways to achieve the same tasks with pretty much having to force people to use different operating systems and with the advent of virtualisation, hosted desktops, Citrix and terminal server accesses is becoming quite popular. It is very good for enabling flexibility and homeworking initiatives, but together that introduces another operating system and another working environment to the end users to have to work with.

� Budget constraints

� Security & Regulatory requirements

� Focus often on backend services

� Legacy approach to maintaining PCs often requiring visits

So we have got some challenges from a business angle. Will it going to really turn on much end user expectations? We are obviously trying to reduce support costs, we are also trying to at the same time do more with less, so we are all constantly looking at reducing operational costs and that is really what I am going to be talking about today. Is how are we are going to actively address these things moving forward. In terms of IT, moving forward from a business angle, there is a lot of more Security and Regulatory compliance that is being required that ranges from PCI in the UK with credit cards, through the HIPAA. There is a multitude of rules and regulations that organizations are now having to do and typically that tends to push the focus towards back-end services. And what we tend to find is the PCs or the end user devices tend to be the last thing that is being looked at and quite often there is this Legacy approach if you will to maintain in PCs. It is quite common for people to deal with all the technology that is available to have to go out and visit PCs to do things like software reinstallations, repair hard disks, if the computer can’t boot it seems an obvious thing that we need to go out and visit the PCs.

� More businesses are being forced to think longer term

� Ensure TCO is considered for all new IT purchases

� Support & Management costs◦ (internal or outsourced)

So we need to sort of look at that and think well, is there a better way of doing it? There is definitely far more reasons to start to think about how we can manage our PCs and our end user environment going forward. So what we need to do is to start to think a bit more strategically. More and more businesses are being forced to think longer-term, so rather than just refreshing PCs as and when they break, we need to be thinking about what is the total cost of ownership for these computing devices? Is it the right thing to give everybody laptops? Is it the right way to give everybody PCs? And when we start to do some total cost of ownership and actually start to assess our users’ needs, we can then start to reduce our support and maintenance and ultimately start to improve the end user experience. So one of the things I always try and do with people that I work with is I try and get customer, I will try and get sales involved in reviewing end user worker requirements. So there are lots of ways of doing that and every organization has different ways of how they communicate out with staff. What I found has worked the best in the past is that we use surveys, we use key stakeholders within the business and we actually assess in real terms what an end user is looking for, one of the main points today and what can we do moving forward. It might be the way we can’t necessarily deliver everything that maybe the business requires in the short term, but having an understanding of end user requirements really enables us to start to think more strategically.

� Review entire workforce requirements

� Conduct surveys

� Identify key stakeholders

� Group users by their needs and not just their job role

� Users typically fall into the following categories◦ Mobile worker

◦ Task based worker

◦ Knowledge based worker

� This will help validate the options going forward

So what I will look to do is that I group users by their needs and not their job role. So for example, someone gets hired and they are automatically given a laptop, what we are looking to do is to actually assess their needs and identify what category of user they are. Microsoft and Citrix and other organizations have started to categorize users and it works very well. At a high level, what we are looking to do is identify what users truly require mobility? Which people need to be on the road, and when they are out on the road what do they need to access? If they just need to access E-mail, they may or might not necessarily need to have a laptop. It might be that they have got access to a computer already at home. Another category of users is what we call task-based workers. So these users are typically very focused, they are very driven, they are using key line of business applications. Call centers are a great example of where task workers exist. So they don’t need to have high-powered PCs, they don’t need to have laptops and these alternative options that we can give them such as a Citrix or VDI virtual desktop hosted solution that enables task workers to operate in a very efficient manner. One of the other categories really that fits within the business are what we call knowledge workers or another way of looking at it is power users. So these are people that are going to be running multiple applications side by side, they are going to have high demands from their computing environment and its those people that we really want to make sure have you know good specification, be it a laptop, or a desktop PC. They have got a good specification and if that’s we are going to have, we need to then look to go about how we’re going to maintain this.

� What business applications do people need access to?

� How are these applications delivered◦ Manual install

◦ Web based

� How are the applications configured?

� Where do people need to have access?

So, once we finish the assessment you get an idea of strategy moving forward. Ultimately everything we look at is about applications and from an end user perspective, all they want to be able to do is run that line of business applications. They are not too concerned really how it is delivered, but they need to have access to those applications in an efficient way and what we need to think about in IT is how are these applications currently being delivered to the desktops? Are they installed manually? Are they web-based applications? And how are those applications configured? It is very frequent that you go to perform a software installation, be it an automated or a manual approach and there is often post configuration tasks that need to happen. We all know that if we install or when we first get delivered something very simple like Outlook, it takes me a while to setup signatures, it takes me a while to setup my shared calendars and all of this stuff is really required every time I move PCs or every time I upgrade my device. So we need to think about how we can go around changing that.

� Application virtualisation◦ Delivers applications and configuration to any OS

◦ Removes dependencies and conflicts

◦ Eliminates the needs for administrator rights

So there is actually some really good technology that has been around for a number of years and one of the ones that I am seeing a lot of attraction with at the moment is Application Virtualisation. Virtualisation is obviously a very popular term in general but Application Virtualisation is pretty specific to the end user. What we are talking about here is creating a method of delivery on the application to any device and any operating system and the method of delivery rather than having the application actually installed, Virtual Application is effectively encapsulated within a bubble. The application itself still runs on the local processor, still consumes the same amount of memory, still consumes the same amount of CPU resources and so on, but the key thing is that it is not actually installed to the device and the great thing about that is not only does it remove the dependency on the device, but it means that users where required can move between computers. They can use a laptop one day and they can use a desktop PC another day and the applications actually follow them, so in the same way that we look to deliver files in a centralized way so that users can access their files anywhere. This actually enables us to deliver the applications as well. There are many, many advantages to Application Virtualisation, but one of the main things really is that it allows us to remove the dependencies and therefore start to remove some of the conflicts that applications traditionally have. So what I am looking to do is to say that Windows 7, the upgrade of PCs, the advent of Virtual Desktop and Citrix are all very popular at the moment. What we need to make sure though is that we are looking at those technologies and then applying things like Application Virtualisation to them. And that is going to really enable us to be agile and flexible within our delivery strategy.

� Consider the use of centralised virtual desktops (VDI)

� Remove the dependency on hardware by virtualising end user applications

� Provide users with the right equipment that best matches their requirement to gain the best TCO

So ultimately what we are looking to do is at again to improve the end user experience. And there are lots of different ways of going about doing that and technology will continue to evolve to enable this to happen for us. I mentioned earlier, Virtual Desktops, or what is referred to as VDI. It is a great technology. It something that enables the operating system to be centrally controlled within a data center that removes a lot of the traditional challenges associated with client ands server-based computing. Applications are now accessed all within the data center which means that they are a lot more secure and the end user experience, the speed of applications are very much quicker. If you can imagine the data between the applications and the back-end servers are all happening on high-speed networks. So you get a very good user experience from a traditional application access method. Again that also could enable homeworking initiatives, it can also enable new offices to be opened up very easily, applications and desktops to be basically provided on demand. So what we are looking to do is provide users with the right equipment that best matches their requirements. Earlier on I was talking about assessing users and putting them into categories. Again, so rather than looking at one department and assigning them all desktop PCs, let us break them into their requirements and deliver them what is required. So if you look at the marketplace at the moment, there are quite some good technology options available and that is really going to start to give us some agility moving forward.

� Consider the following:◦ Security rules and regulations

◦ Flexible home working initiatives for everyone

◦ Environmental initiatives – going green

◦ Application Upgrades

� Moves and Changes◦ Office moves

◦ Contract workers

◦ Internal job moves

So I am looking to the future. I mentioned there are new security rules, there are new regulations. There are environmental initiatives. Lots of companies are looking at ways of reducing their energy consumption and certainly desktop PCs and data center in general consumes an awful lot of power and energy. There are some great technologies that are now available with the help of Intel, V-Pro and their power management that really can start to reduce the power consumption of our end user devices. Netbooks are becoming very popular. They have got a very good energy footprint. They are very economical to buy, but with Netbooks also bring challenges around delivery and applications. Virtual Desktops are an excellent combination to use with Netbooks, but something we are seeing more and more popular as businesses look to enable their end users, give them flexibility on the types of devices that they can carry around with them. 3G access has made these more popular as well and with 3G access comes limited bandwidth, the great thing about VDI and Citrix is obviously they do not require an awful lot of bandwidth in order to deliver applications. We also need to think about moves and changes. There are lots of organizations that have contract workers, both temporary internal staff and people that maybe get accommodated to do another job for a month or so. All these moves and changes can put a significant burden on the IT department and with the help of things like Application Virtualisation that is going to enable the end user to be more flexible in their approach.

� Review technology options based requirements:◦ Desktop – best suited to power users◦ Consider using new ATOM enabled desktop for task workers. Can cost as little as £140◦ Thin Clients – best suited to task workers� More cost effective to use Atom based PCs◦ Netbook's – best suited for mobile workers with WiFi, 3G access connecting to centralised desktop◦ Notebooks – best suited to offline mobile workers who require high power graphics or advanced applications

So, looking at the technology options, we have desktop PCs which we are all familiar with, they are going to remain very popular though there are lots of optimizations that are now available within the desktop market that enables us to do out of bound management. Out of bound management is effectively a nice way of being able to remotely control the PC, effectively from the system booting up all the way into the operating system and that can really start to reduce the site visits. So the key message really is that if we know that desktop PC is going to be there, that is absolutely fine. But let us try and make them as centrally controlled as possible. I mentioned the Netbooks earlier. Those Netbooks typically, now a lot of them are running on the new ATOM chips from Intel. There is desktop varieties of devices that cost something like 150 pounds, you can actually effective replace large desktops with these smaller devices. Again we need to think about what kind of applications we are looking to run, the task workers that are may be just accessing Microsoft office, a few websites can actually get away with using these smaller devices. Thinklines are another option, they have always been popular but traditionally being associated with SAML server computing and Citrix delivery options. No problem with thinklines. There has always been a debate as to whether to go for a Linux variety of thinkline or Windows XP-embedded variety of thinkline. There is actually some good ATOM-based PCs outlet and one of the things that I am pretty keen on at this moment is looking to use these ATOM-based PCs where possible as alternative thinklines. That gives us some of flexibility so that if we have a need to deploy an application locally outside of a Citrix environment we have got the options of fall back.

� Trends◦ Smaller organisations are using managed service providers to gain enterprise level benefits

◦ Virtualisation & centralisation

� Understand user requirements

� Provide a flexible computing platform to cope with change

So, we have come to the end of this session, just really to kind of finalize things. The main thing that we are talking about is improving end user experience. One of the ways of doing that is making sure that we deliver them the right hardware and the right devices for their requirements. We should be thinking of virtualizing as much as possible and Application Virtualisation really is going to be the next generation of enablement. It is a very good time at the moment to look at using Application Virtualisation in line with some of the Windows 7 upgrades that are happening at the moment. So, moving forward what we are looking to do is when people upgrade to Windows 7, at the same time think about how the applications are going to be delivered and make sure that we give them the right type of device, via Netbook, via laptop or a virtual desktop. So really understand their end user requirements and ultimately what that is going to achieve it is going to give us greater flexibility of computing platform and when we look to do future upgrades from Windows 7 to the next version whatever that maybe, because our application is virtualized that enables us to reduce the project lifecycle we can just treat hardware as we do you know, just as telephones almost. You plug them in and they are going to work. So hopefully that has given you some things to think about, some interesting technologies to look at and investigate further. I do appreciate you have taken the time to listen in today and with that I am going to hand over to Kyle. Kyle LeRoy: Thank you very much Andy for your presentation, and thank you all so much for joining us today. That concludes today’s presentation, ‘The End User Experience, The Working End User’.