I toned down the last paragraph of this Juice article last week for posting on the company site. But I can’t help myself. Here’s the original edit:
“The great part for SVS development is that we didn’t have to write any of this stuff. All the needed info was just there in Windows, waiting for SVS to come along and use it to make magic. This is one example of what I mean when I say that SVS extends the plumbing that is inherent in native Windows. MS put the process tracking system in place for a lot of reasons, but it’s core to SVS being able to do what it does. It makes redirection and prioritization — and the resultant normal visibility of virtualized apps — possible. It’s one of the reasons why the lead engineer who invented SVS, Randy Cook, knew that we didn’t need to build a new, alternate execution environment like other app virtualization vendors have. They didn’t need to build a proprietary execution environment, either, actually, but they did anyway. And you see the results. Guess Randy just understands Windows architecture better.” 
There are lots of different names for it out there. Intel calls it “Emerging Compute Models.” Dell and EDS call it “Flexible Computing”. Others call it “Desktop On-Demand” or any number of other names. I’ve been known to call it “Dynamic Environment” or (more recently) “Optimized Client Architectures”. What we are all talking about is the same, however — the more immediate, more reliable, more secure and less costly delivery of computer services to end users, whenever they need them, no matter where they are.
Disclaimer (Oct ‘09): This page is a popular Google hit. I assume that’s due to significant community interest in virtualization, esp. desktop virtualization. However, this post is now only of historical value. The market has changed. The products have changed. Altiris (now Symantec) has changed its positioning and strategy significantly since this was written. For current info on Symantec Endpoint Virtualization, visit Symantec Connect.
- – -
This article has been sitting in my Drafts folder for months. Between being very busy and SoftGrid becoming less of a competitive issue for us since the MS acquisition (and their subsequent demotion of it to a promotional tool), I haven’t really had the opportunity or motivation to complete either this or my promised open letter to Bill Anderson. But there’s some good info in here, so I figured I’d post it in raw form, with minimal updating for any factual changes since it was originally composed back in May or June. If I have already extracted out some of this text for previous posts, my apologies for the duplication. Enjoy.
Twice in the Navy, I was promised a trip to Australia. Twice I was sent to the Persian Gulf instead. Now, eighteen years later, justice is finally done. Altiris has sent me to both Sydney and Melbourne, with Auckland, New Zealand, as a bonus.
Disclaimer (Oct ‘09): This page is a popular Google hit. I assume that’s due to significant community interest in virtualization, esp. desktop virtualization. However, this post is now only of historical value. The market has changed. The products have changed. Altiris (now Symantec) has changed its positioning and strategy significantly since this was written. For current info on Symantec Endpoint Virtualization, visit Symantec Connect.
- – -
I didn’t mean to imply that this post is “a comprehensive…response to some of the comments here and elsewhere.” There’s still plenty that compels a response. The comments posted in reply to this touch on most of the items that I’d like to cover here in my blog, so let’s just go down that thread.
I grew up in New Hampshire. So when I was a kid, if we were gonna go to “the big city,” for baseball, museums, shopping, whatever, Boston was it. Boston was, of course, at least partially famous for its “blue laws” and other generally conservative policies, and the phrase “banned in Boston” was part of the New England vernacular. Hence the title of this post.
Here’s an updated list of the best blog posts, forum threads and podcasts on SVS:
beta@amanzi » Altiris Software Virtualisation Solution
Bobkous weblog aka kous.net » Blog Archive » Review: Altiris Software Virtualization Solution 2
Free condoms for your Windows install | MetaFilter
Kevin Dente’s PuppiesAndIceCreamBlog: Altiris SVS – a new kind of virtualization
OSBlues » Blog Archive » Altiris SVS killed my firefox
SuperJason’s Personal Blog: Altiris SVS – Software Virtualization Solution
SVS — Virtualize Software Installs (Software Gadgets)
SVS, a klik-alike application for the Windows OS? | www.kdedevelopers.org
The Hive Archive » Blog Archive » Virtualizing Firefox Bon Echo with Altiris SVS
The Tech Tap Podcast: Episode #021 – Team: SPF .08
tk here: Sandbox your apps
Travelling without Moving: Softricity SoftGrid vs. Altiris Software Virtualisation Solution
Live’s Major Nelson: Show #176 The one about the dash update
Tasty Programs (scroll to bottom)
Altiris Wise introduce wrappers for MSI virtualization
The Strong Cross (scroll to bottom)
Office 2007 Virtualization with Altiris SVS
Disclaimer (Oct ‘09): This page is a popular Google hit. I assume that’s due to significant community interest in virtualization, esp. desktop virtualization. However, this post is now only of historical value. The market has changed. The products have changed. Altiris (now Symantec) has changed its positioning and strategy significantly since this was written. For current info on Symantec Endpoint Virtualization, visit Symantec Connect.
- – -
The SVS-SoftGrid battle has heated up the past two months. Of course, I did my part with that intentionally inflammatory previous post. Sorry about that. Hard to resist, and it was meant in a positive competitive spirit. Believe me, I’ve said much worse about Florida State fans! But the fact is there shouldn’t be much of a battle here; we’re talking about two very different products that do very different things. And each vendor needs to be doing a better job helping customers understand the differences and the applicability of each product to specific business problems.
I’ve been trying off and on for a few weeks to compose a comprehensive, useful response to some of the comments here and elsewhere. Haven’t been successful yet, mostly because — whatever may be going on in the competitive landscape — everyone here at Altiris has been busy selling SVS. Today, tho, we got a good post on the Juice from Edwin Yuen of Softricity. And I guess I just find it easier to respond to rational comments. 
Please check out our exchange and the whole comments thread below this article. Excelsior!
Disclaimer (Oct ‘09): This page is a popular Google hit. I assume that’s due to significant community interest in virtualization, esp. desktop virtualization. However, this post is now only of historical value. The market has changed. The products have changed. Altiris (now Symantec) has changed its positioning and strategy significantly since this was written. For current info on Symantec Endpoint Virtualization, visit Symantec Connect.
- – -
The title of this post is an in-joke for anyone who was at MMS yesterday and heard the SMS guys in the keynote chokin’ and jokin’ about their Softricity partnership.
Based on the independent opinion of the judges — and of every customer we spoke with in the MMS partner expo — maybe SMS picked the wrong team mates?
Wondering if Softricity will do a follow-up to this PR, letting the world know that they got a Runner-Up plaque?
Excelsior!
However you may feel about the tone and quality of the discussion threads on Slashdot (a.k.a “/.”), the fact is that coverage there is very effective PR.
I scan the /. headlines daily, sometimes multiple times a day. While I almost never read the discussion threads, I do count on /. and The Register to help me find emerging industry info that I need to know about, and to point me to more detail. They both serve me well.
Remember how I went on about the accuracy of the recent InfoWorld review of SVS? Well, it’s happened twice more. Once in the traditional IT press and once in a blog. Amazing. Three completely technically accurate articles in one month. SVS is changing the world in ways we didn’t even anticipate! So here it is, Ladies and Gentlemen, my SVS Media Hall of Fame, wherein we recognize excellence in technical accuracy in IT journalism:
SVS 2.0 shipped on Thursday, March 23. The free for personal use version is now available on PCMag.com, the Download.com network, Tucows and SVSDownloads.com. The full 120 day evaluation product is available on Altiris.com.
Backlogged orders have been filled. The sales guys and our channel partners are now fully engaged because they can actually book SVS revenue and get quota credit for it. We got another award. The press and blogs are talking — Google hits (not including altiris.com) are up to 16,500. I’m headed to Puerto Rico tomorrow to present to a gathering of customers. Now that we’ve shipped, the partners want to get moving on integrations and comarketing. ManageFusion, our semi-annual trade show, is in two weeks, with already more people registered than we’ve ever had attend…
We are now eight days away from the release of SVS 2.0. Our Gold Master build has been posted to “Latest,” the next-to-last staging area on our internal development servers. The Altiris “Lifecycle Management Lab” (what the rest of the industry might refer to as “System Test”) is doing their thing, hammering away on the code to ensure that everything we say is fixed really is fixed, and that we haven’t introduced any new problems.
Altiris IS has rolled SVS 2.0 to most of the managed machines internally and will keep adding users throughout the week. On Friday, the GM build will be moved over to “ACC” (for “Accepted”), the last staging point before going live next week on the Altiris Solution Center and various downloads pages.
Randy and Rich have both already mentioned the InfoWorld review of SVS. (They’ve been doing a much better job of keeping their blogs current than I have.) It’s amazing. In fact, it’s almost perfect, except for one use of the phrase “paradigm shift.” That’s been too cliche for too long for any editor to allow it through. All involved parties, however, earned forgiveness for that singular transgression.
This review is a rarity in the Information Technology press — it contains not a single factual inaccuracy! And amazingly, the author, Randall C. Kennedy, didn’t accomplish that by merely regurgitating an Altiris press release or some other Altiris-provided document. He wrote the piece in his own words, not ours, based on his own experimentation with SVS, not our demo, yet was dead-on accurate. This means he actually understood the product. It’s a sad statement about the IT press that this accomplishment deserves a dropped-jaw, “wow!”
I sense some very interesting comarketing opportunities… !
