David joined Microsoft 12 years ago. In this time he’s worked in several groups, including a three year run as head of technology for small business, which involved working with Microsoft partners to ensure great solutions for SME customers.

For the last 4 years David has worked with a select group of partners who add significant value to desktop solutions, enabling friction free migration from old desktop technology to a modern rich or virtual desktop solution – through this the Desktop Enablement Partner Team has been realised. 

Microsoft’s objective is to ensure that customers can realise the benefits of a modern desktop as quickly as possible. Successful deployments of Windows and Office with happy users is the primary measure of success, while the focus is ensuring customers and partners are aware of the benefits that the Enablement Partners can bring.

Enablement Partners solve problems that customers frequently encounter when moving to Windows 7 whether installed physically on a computer, virtually through VDI or using a Windows Server Remote Desktop Services solution. These challenges slow down deployments and can provide the user with an unsatisfactory desktop once the deployment project is completed. 

Typical problems revolve around application compatibility and migration, moving the user “personality profile” forward, licensing issues and making the new desktop available on a range of end-point devices. 

The challenges that customers face when moving to a rich desktop include:

• An unknown application sprawl that needs migration to the new desktop
• Application mitigation where potential problems exist running Windows 7 or Windows Server 2008 R2 under Remote Desktop Services
• User profile migration and portability
• Support for deployment on rich computing platforms and in virtual environments

Through the use of Desktop Enablement partners, customers experience a more precise understanding of the challenges. This empowers them to deliver a fast, focused project, reducing the efforts required and therefore the cost, as well as significantly increasing the user satisfaction of their new environment.  So it’s clear that Enablement Partners are a vital part of the realisation of a modern desktop for customers.

Using these partners allows customers to deploy Microsoft’s latest technologies more quickly, easily and at reduced cost. Allowing customers to realise the value of the software they have purchased, while still maintaining the pace of innovation and progress.

In addition to Camwood, the key Desktop Enablement Partners include