Windows 11 is now generally available. How ready is your organization for Windows 11? Some will say that Windows 11 is just an update to Windows 10 but we’ve done our testing and that’s not altogether true.  Remember when Microsoft said that Windows 10 was “the last OS” and the “forever version of Windows”?  Well, now we know it clearly was not.

Windows 11’s interface is being called “Mac-like.” This new look comes with many changes. The Start Menu and task bar are notably different and there are also new capabilities called Windows Widgets, Snap Layouts and Groups, and Android apps are also coming to Windows 11 OS a little later. With all of these changes, the Windows user profile is also very different between Windows 10 and 11. If your profiles today are reliant on basic profile tools such as roaming profiles or FSLogix, they will not work seamlessly between Windows 10 and 11.

Before your organization moves even one workspace to Windows 11 or Azure Virtual Desktop on Windows 11  you should practice a tried and true methodology for migration success. We’ll be delivering a webinar later this month entitled, “Ready for Windows 11? Get the 411 from Liquidware” – be sure to register now. But prior to that, here are some key points to consider as you start planning for Windows 11.

This week we launched FlexApp Packaging Automation. The head turning news about our FlexApp One GA announcement is still fresh on everyone’s minds and our development team has already done it again – made news by creating new innovation in the app layering market.

Our existing FlexApp packaging console has long been noticed by industry gurus as the easiest way to create a FlexApp packaging container for layering and portability. It is straightforward and easy to use for a few dozen apps or a consistent flow of a few apps to package at a time. But what about larger enterprises which can easily have hundreds or thousands of apps to package? This is the reason why FlexApp Automated Packaging was born. We’ve seen competitors attempt to automate packaging with scripts but FlexApp leads with innovation with the most automated bulk packaging options available.

FlexApp Automated Packaging provides enterprises with the ability to significantly reduce application packaging and deployment times. It also provides great integration for DevOps by enabling an organization to deliver applications at high velocity. The new feature enables app administrators to use several VMs at once to create unattended FlexApps from virtually any Windows application. Imagine setting up your packaging and then going home for the night, only to return the next morning with hundreds off apps all ready set for testing and deployment as FlexApps.

Today we announced the General Availability of FlexApp One, a new feature in FlexApp that revolutionizes the way that app layers are made portable and consumed.

FlexApp One untethers FlexApp applications by containerizing them in a self-sufficient executable. Benefits include rapid application deployment through any means, including popular cloud file sharing services, and optional deployment with Microsoft Endpoint Configuration Manager. FlexApp One applications remain elastic and can even go offline to support the increased demand in work from anywhere workforces. That’s right, physical PCs and laptops are supported as long as they are well-managed – unencumbered by multiple software packages installed/uninstalled by users.

Remember, FlexApp and FlexApp One applications are never “installed” to the Windows OS, therefore they don’t degrade the PC, virtual workspace, or Server OS overtime. The result is a clean base image that is easy to maintain and apps that are very easy to deploy and update.

HIMSS 2021 just wrapped up and we thought we’d share a few thoughts on the conference.

This was the first in-person event that Liquidware has been able to participate in 17 months due to Covid-19 cancelations. We’ve all been personally affected by the pandemic in many ways and we hope you are doing your best to stay safe while continuing to experience life and work. We were excited to have the chance to see the emergence of a bit of normalcy with an in-person conference like HIMSS (Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society). Strict measures were taken by HIMSS to ensure a safe conference including mandatory individual health checks, masks, and more.

We exhibited in the IGEL Ready pavilion and would like to thank IGEL for their leadership in “getting out there” and committing to this event in a big way. More than 20,000 people attended the conference in Las Vegas last week, just less than half of the attendance that the 2019 show in Orlando saw. Still, this was a sizeable conference. While foot traffic was noticeably lighter than in previous years due to the impact of Covid-19, we had many great conversations with healthcare IT professionals.

We shared ways that Liquidware solutions have helped with the Work from Anywhere movement and specifically how we have kept many hospitals’ physical, Citrix and VMware Windows workspaces performing flexibly throughout the pandemic. Many were interested in our Liquidware FlexApp layering solution that will soon be extended to support Microsoft Endpoint Manager and offline use cases through a forthcoming FlexApp One feature. We also discussed the emergence of Microsoft AVD, Windows 365 and Cloud PC and how the entire Liquidware Digital Workspace Management suite already supports these platforms today.

Liquidware to showcase digital workspace management for healthcare provider organizations.

Liquidware will be exhibiting at HIMSS 21, Las Vegas August 10-12 in booth #2859 in the IGEL Ready Pavilion. While Liquidware has experienced significant growth and demand for digital workspace management in the last year, the event marks the first in-person event that Liquidware has had the opportunity to exhibit at since the start of the Covid-19 pandemic. More than 21,000 are reported to be registered to attend. We’re looking forward to seeing many of you!

We will be demonstrating how our solutions provide seamless digital workspace management for healthcare workers. Stratusphere UX delivers end-to-end monitoring and diagnostics while FlexApp layering simplifies desktop image and application delivery. Additionally, we will also demonstrate how ProfileUnity™ integrates with secure single sign-on authentication through solutions such as Imprivata OneSign. You’ll also see how we can facilitate “follow-me” workspaces, allowing healthcare staff to provide better care for patients by having the provider’s profile and group policies follow them from station to station. The use of ProfileUnity also allows admins to select only local printers to deliver to specific user groups which allows them to choose selected printers close to their location(s) instead of an entire list. Then Stratusphere UX™ and ProfileUnity assist in reducing login times allowing healthcare professionals more time with patients.

Azure Virtual Desktop (AVD) is the new name for Windows Virtual Desktop (WVD). Microsoft briefed Liquidware internally ahead of the recent public announcement. As a premier Azure Migrate Program member, we’re proud to announce day-one support for AVD across our entire Digital Workspace Management suite known as Liquidware Essentials.

Microsoft announced other changes, such as the Quickstart initiative, that will be sure to fast-track proof-of-concept deployments of AVD. To complement this effort, Microsoft has worked with Liquidware to offer specially negotiated FREE subscription licenses of Liquidware’s desktop transformation solutions.

Liquidware offers solutions that greatly assist in the movement of Windows desktops and users to Microsoft AVD. Our solutions cover every phase of a desktop transformation to Microsoft AVD including:

• Assessments and planning with Stratusphere FIT assessments
• Migrations of user persona and user data with ProfileUnity user environment management
• Application delivery with FlexApp layering
• Ongoing User Experience metrics for monitoring and diagnostics with Stratusphere UX

Microsoft customers looking to adopt AVD can request their specially negotiated FREE licenses by visiting the newly updated Azure Virtual Desktop pages on our site to learn more.

Realizing a Return on Investment (ROI) is more important than ever in today’s ever changing business climate. Working closely with one customer last year we were able to show potential ROI savings of more than $6 million.

The business world changed last year. The Covid-19 pandemic saw immediate changes with office environments and users’ workspaces that continue to evolve even today. The uncertainty of business continuity and unpredictable revenue has seen many CFOs scrutinizing every dollar spent. Many organizations immediately mandated that ROI should be forecasted before investing in any new solution.

With agile virtual and cloud-based workspaces that enable working from home, it’s easy to show ROI, if workers can’t effectively work, time is lost and business comes to a complete halt. Since our founding, Liquidware has enabled our customers to quickly transform your users’ desktops to modern desktops such as those from Citrix, VMware, or Amazon. Our solutions have direct positive impacts on user and admin productivity, savings in unused software license costs, expanded hardware lifespans, and more.

Liquidware’s Adaptive Workspace Management suite, known as Liquidware Essentials, indeed helps organizations directly realize ROI in many areas. We work closely with you, using your organization’s unique data and situation, to develop an ROI estimate that will enlighten you and your staff to the money that you can be saving with the industry’s only Adaptive Workspace Management suite.  Here’s an example of the ROI that one organization agreed that they’d be able to realize:

Get started now. We’ve made it easy to get your own ROI estimate from Liquidware with a custom ROI calculator that starts with a quick survey, ROI consulting sessions with our staff, and a new ROI whitepaper.

Starting today (March 15, 2021) Liquidware is running a social media campaign around the number one – according to WhatMatrix – application layering solution, FlexApp. With ten huge innovations over the years, it’s little wonder why FlexApp was chosen as the first place pick.

Once a week, for five weeks, you stand the chance of winning an Amazon $100 gift card for the most viral social media post of the week. That can be your own post, or a re-post of one of our posts, just so long as you use the hashtag #WinWithFlexApp. The full contest rules can be read here.

Perhaps you’re already a FlexApp customer? If so, feel free to share your experience of how it’s delivering value to your organization. Just post on social media, not forgetting the #WinWithFlexApp hashtag!!

FlexApp layering dynamically delivers applications to any Windows desktop environment without affecting the underlying base image or operating system. The solution supports VDI, physical desktops, and cloud-based workspaces such as Microsoft WVD, Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops, VMware Horizon, Nutanix Xi Frame, and Amazon WorkSpaces. Innovative and industry-first features such as Click-to-Layer (apps on-demand), FlexApp Cache, and seamless support of cloud object-based storage, make FlexApp the number one application layering choice for any organization.

And what do our customers say?

“FlexApp has been a godsend…a basic update would cause me to spend 20 minutes each on 60 machines. Now I spend 20 minutes once, so the time savings are a factor of 60.”
– University Center at Ponca City

So, share our posts on Twitter, LinkedIn, and Facebook over the coming weeks or write your own. Include the #WinWithFlexApp hashtag and encourage post sharing for a chance to win a $100 Amazon gift card – good luck!

When Liquidware launched FlexApp layering in 2012, it was the most innovative layering solution seen in the market because it focused on applications instead of the whole system layering. We described the apps as “dynamic” because they’re not encumbered by the OS or OS changes. While others have become stale in their development, we’ve continued to innovate over the years. Below is a list of innovations and performance features that set FlexApp apart from the competition.

Here are 10 FlexApp layering innovations you won’t find anywhere else!

1. Application layering with full user environment management (ProfileUnity) – delivering advanced application delivery options including context awareness, select privilege elevation, application restrictions, registry fix up, and more!
2. Micro Isolation – no need to stack multiple applications in single layers. Instead, a single layer is created for each application, which allows for ultimate granularity in assigning apps to users, groups and machines. This approach also simplifies updating applications by allowing you to update a single package for a single app rather than dealing with cumbersome multi-app layers. Lastly, this approach provides greater success with packaging and deploying applications, as you no longer need to deal with conflicts manually.
3. Cloud Native FlexApps – Applications can be stored natively on any major cloud (such as Microsoft Blob storage) without the expense or complications of file shares.
4. FlexApp Cache Mode – FlexApps cache to the local session for rock-solid performance, regardless of the quality of network connections.
5. FlexApp Cloud Apps – FlexApp includes prepackaged cloud apps so you can hit the ground running with POCs without packaging.
6. Disaster Recovery and High Availability – FlexApp includes its own messaging fabric and replication without requiring expensive load balancers and complicated DR plans.
7. FastPackaging™ – While other app layering solutions can take more than 45 minutes to package even a simple app, FlexApp packaging is a fast process and occurs in about the same time it takes to install the app once!
8. PackageOnce™ – FlexApp applications work across Windows OS versions (app support required), with no need to repackage applications for OS upgrades!
9. Session Isolation – Multi-session Windows 10, RDS, and Citrix Virtual Apps are no problem for FlexApp, users only see and use the apps they have access to, even on the same host!
10. Three clouds! – FlexApp supports all three major cloud platforms natively, while others support only one or require file shares.

If you’ve not tried FlexApp, what are you waiting for? Download ProfileUnity with FlexApp today and you’ll be on your way to efficient app delivery – greatly decreasing your total cost of workspace ownership by streamlining your image management requirements.

Liquidware announced this week a Stratusphere UX Integration Kit for ServiceNow. The kit is not only now available to joint customers in the ServiceNow Store, it is also officially certified. ServiceNow Certification verifies that the Kit has successfully completed a set of defined tests focused on ServiceNow Platform security, compatibility, performance, and integration interoperability.