Starting today, Immidio is on its own: we have acquired new investors that will fund our ambitious plans.

In October 2008, Immidio was founded as part of the Login Consultants group of companies. The first year of our existence we mainly focused on the development of our two point solutions: Immidio Flex Profiles and Immidio AppScriber.

Immediately after the release of Immidio Flex Profiles last August, we started to roll-out an international channel sales program that resulted in signing up distributors and partners in many countries around the world. In Q4/2009 our sales already hit a record of well over 100.000 licenses sold. With our second product – Immidio AppScriber – released in January, we are on track for exceeding our Q1/2010 targets as well.

Over the past period we have seen that our strategy of delivering point solutions at commodity prices is widely appreciated. We will stay away from building expensive product suites where you are forced to purchase functionality you will never use. Immidio’s products provide solutions to specific problems, therefore offering clear returns on investment. Our best of breed solutions provide the flexibility that companies prefer while shaping their IT landscape.

Now that we have become a completely independent company with strong funding and a 21st century business model, expect to see more smart solutions coming to the market, more customers choosing our agile point solutions and to hear about us more frequently.

Immidio AppScriber 2.0 is available! Here is a brief introduction into the product:  In today’s agile business world, employees want 24×7 self-service access to the Windows applications they need. Immidio AppScriber, allowing web-based self-service application provisioning, is the solution to such requirements.  Through the AppScriber frontend, users can interactively provision their own applications or make an application self-assignment request to an approver.  All a user needs to do is simply browse or search for the application he or she needs, and subscribe or unsubscribe with one click.

Immidio AppScriber significantly reduces the time consumed by user-initiated application requests, as these activities require no IT intervention, no call to the helpdesk and no support ticket opened.  This gives users a sense of independence when selecting the applications they need, while enabling your IT department to retain control.

Immidio AppScriber extends the most popular application deployment solutions, such as Microsoft Installer (MSI) with Group Policies, Microsoft App-V, Microsoft System Center Configuration Manager, Microsoft RemoteApp programs (as provided with Windows Server 2008 R2 RDS), Citrix XenApp application publishing, Citrix application streaming and Symantec Altiris Deployment Solution.

Immidio AppScriber 2.0 now differentiates between three application types: general applications, mandatory applications and managed applications.  General applications were introduced with Immidio AppScriber 1.0, where users can self-assign an application through the AppScriber web interface.  The new mandatory application type allows AppScriber administrators to show a list of applications deployed statically to groups of users.  This gives users an accurate overview of all applications they have access to.

The most relevant feature introduced with Immidio AppScriber 2.0 is the managed application type which kicks off an approval workflow as soon as the user requests such an application.  For this purpose, Immidio AppScriber 2.0 supports a new approver role – one or more approvers can be configured per managed application.  An approver is a non-technical manager that is able to accept or reject a user’s request.  The workflow process involved supports interactivity and message delivery both through the web frontend and through e-mail.

According to feedback we have received from our customer base, the workflow functionalities added to our product make Immidio AppScriber 2.0 a complete enterprise solution.  Now the three relevant roles for application deployment are reflected in the product – application users, non-technical application approvers and IT administrators.

Feel free to give Immidio AppScriber 2.0 a try. After registering on the Immidio website, you can download the fully functional Immidio AppScriber 2.0 installation package and get a free 30-day trial license.

There are many aspects that come to mind when migrating to Windows 7 in any environment. How to deploy the new operating system, re-package or virtualize applications, how to deploy those applications, etcetera.

What we’ve seen quite a lot in the past, when people were migrating to Windows XP, is that the migration of the users’ application settings was not considered. This resulted in several unpleasant experiences.

1. After migration the helpdesk gets overloaded with issues related to application settings. This also quite often created a bad image of the IT department.
2. After migration there is no way back and it restricts users to roam outside the locations that are migrated to the new OS (without a notebook). Because once you have logged onto the new OS, it’s better not to roam and log on to the old OS anymore.
3. Because of issue 2, many companies were forced to do a “big bang” migration, where all desktops were upgraded in a very short period of time, which resulted in even more focus on issue 1.

Many customers don’t want to go through this again and are looking for another way to get through this phase. With Immidio Flex Profiles Advanced we introduce a solution which helps you with a smoother transition to Windows 7 on the level of user experience and provide substantial benefit on managing Windows profiles after the migration as well.

Immidio Flex Profiles Advanced is a Windows Profile Management solution which solves a lot of issues and optimizes the overall user experience. This is achieved by decoupling and segmenting personal application settings from the underlying Windows OS and profile, making these settings available cross-Windows platform and creating a consistent user experience no matter what Windows OS the user is working on.

The approach for the Windows XP to Windows 7 migration is pretty straightforward and consists of the following steps.

Implement Immidio Flex Profiles Advanced in your current Windows XP environment.

1. Install the FlexEngine (tiny MSI) on each endpoint.
2. Configure the FlexEngine through Active Directory Group Policy with help of the provided ADM template.
3. Make sure the FlexEngine runs at Logon and Logoff for all users. (e.g. Logon and Logoff scripts).
4. Use the Flex Profiles Management Console to create application-specific configuration files for the application settings you want to “decouple” from the Windows Profile.

From this point on, the application settings you configured will be stored outside the Windows profile once a user logs off, on a location you configured (e.g. homedrive). Let users work in this situation for such a period of time that you are sure that all the configured application settings are “decoupled” for all users.

Implement Immidio Flex Profiles Advanced in your new Windows 7 environment.

What you need to do to implement Immidio Flex Profiles Advanced in the new environment is very dependent on the total migration scenario (like AD migration). But what we at least require is that you use the same location where you have stored the “decoupled” user settings. In each migration scenario, you at least need to install the FlexEngine on each Windows 7 device.

You can now deploy Windows 7 and applications using the deployment solution(s) you have in place at the pace you want to without migrating the “traditional” Windows profile. Once a user logs on to a Windows 7 desktop the FlexEngine will load all the personal application settings that were created by the FlexEngine in the Windows XP environment.

In the Windows 7 environment you could even decide to use a mandatory profile for all or specific users to get optimal logon and logoff times. Then you can decide which application settings users can modify and save by using the Flex Profiles Management Console.

The result

First, a smooth transition to Windows 7 while maintaining personal application settings. Second, take control of Windows profiles on Windows 7 from that point on. And third, you have just created a Windows XP and Windows 7 side-by-side desktop environment. Meaning users can now switch between these two OS’es with a consistent user experience, since the application settings that you decided on can now be roamed cross-platform.

This all results in much less overload on the helpdesk after migration, users can roam outside the locations that have been migrated and no (technical) pressure on a big bang migration!

Many of our Immidio Flex Profiles customers are successfully using the product on workstation platforms such as Windows XP, Windows Vista or Windows 7. Now some of them had the question if it is possible to use Immidio Flex Profiles Advanced Edition in offline scenarios. The simple answer is YES!

Here is a short description on how to use Immidio Flex Profiles offline: The runtime component FlexEngine uses INI files to select the profile information to be stored when terminating individual applications or logging off from a user session. The profile information is written into ZIP files that are used to restore the profile information on application launch or at logon. In order to run Immidio Flex Profiles offline, you have to make sure that all required INI files and the user home folder – or any other location you want to store the profile archives at – are available offline.

This can be achieved by making sure that the INI files are accessible locally and that the user home directory is made available offline. The relevant settings are configured in User Configuration\Administrative Templates\Network\Offline Files and in Computer Configuration\Administrative Templates\Network\Offline Files in the Group Policy Object Editor snap-in. For details see Microsoft’s TechNet article “Configuring Group Policy for Offline Files”.

It’s about a month ago that we released Immidio Flex Profiles Advanced Edition. The number of downloads and the positive feedback from our customers is way beyond our expectations. It looks like our profile management solutions is something many IT professionals are looking for. But why is that so?

User demands are sky-rocketing when it comes to modern IT infrastructures – leading to elevated expectations regarding computer usability, application performance and workspace control. In other words, today’s users want to be the center of the IT universe. They want to be in full control of their workspace and application settings, and they expect IT to work smoothly no matter if they are online or offline. This common vision of a user-centric application infrastructure encourages organizations to introduce desktop and application virtualization technologies on a large scale.

Windows user profiles play an important role in a modern desktop and application infrastructure as they preserve the individual settings between interactive logins. The profile management functionality built into Microsoft Windows is challenged by today’s requirements including multiple desktops per users, various application publishing methods and a range of virtualization technologies. As a consequence, profile management gets more and more attention as a profile is like a user’s digital personality, represented by the individual workspace and application settings. Today’s users expect that their personal settings are following them, independent of their physical location, Windows version, desktop engine and application delivery method.

Immidio Flex Profiles Advanced Edition optimizes the management of user profiles for Windows desktops and applications provided through local workstations, terminal servers, Citrix Presentation Server / XenApp or Virtual Desktop Infrastructures (both 32-bit and 64-bit). This includes the application-specific handling of both registry settings and configuration files during user logon, user logoff, application launch, or application termination events.  Individual configuration files for different applications and workspace settings allow modifying the behavior of the Immidio Flex Profiles logic. Immidio Flex Profiles can be used in conjunction with local profiles, roaming profiles or mandatory profiles.

The advantage of Immidio Flex Profiles is that you get the performance and stability of mandatory or local profiles while still having the ability to retain customized user settings from their sessions. Simple INI configuration files determine which registry settings, files or folders should be retained within the profile. When configured properly, Immidio Flex Profiles Advanced Edition provides extremely fast user logons and logoffs when compared to standard roaming profiles. This method also allows the simultaneous usage of Windows 7, Windows Vista, Windows XP, and Windows Server 2003/2008 Terminal Services remote desktops in one environment; user-specific settings work cross-platform if Immidio Flex Profiles is used.

If compared to competitors, Immidio Flex Profiles has several advantages or unique selling points:

1. Low complexity with respect to the base concept of running FlexEngine as a command-line program and avoiding massive backend infrastructure. (no database server or web server required)
2. Superior granularity when handling application-specific segments of the user profile, easily configurable through individual INI files. (profile segmentation)
3. Low footprint of user profile data when looking at required disk space capacity and network bandwidth.
4. Intuitive graphical management console and application setting import wizard based on Microsoft Sysinternals ProcMon log files, reducing the effort to create Flex Profiles INI files significantly.
5. Enterprise-ready centralized management through Active Directory Group Policies.

Immidio Flex Profiles’ method of dividing user profiles into multiple segments decouples different personal configuration sets, with some of these configuration sets related to applications and others to individual groups of workspace settings.  As an example, Immidio Flex Profiles can make individual settings of Microsoft Word completely independent of a user’s preferred mouse settings – an obvious user requirement that is not available out of the box. 

In addition to that, profile segmentation allows for smooth migration and cross-platform scenarios where only selected application settings roam with a user while general workspace settings may be platform-specific.  Selected workspace settings, such as keyboard, mouse, Internet Explorer, certificates, screensavers and Windows Explorer, can be managed through dedicated product functionalities.  Combined with its minimal installation and backend footprint, Immidio Flex Profiles is ideal for today’s user requirements in modern virtualized Windows environments.

Today, we released Immidio Flex Profiles Advanced Edition to the public. We added so many cool new features and enhanced both usability and performance that this edition of Flex Profiles really marks a major milestone. And the best thing is that Immidio Flex Profiles Advanced Edition supports Windows 7 (!!!), Windows Server 2008, Windows Vista, Windows Server 2003 and Windows XP. We made sure that user profiles can be used across several Windows versions now. And the other best thing is the brand new graphical management console for configuration files (INI files). And there are so many more best things. We are so excited…

Go and get your trial version of Immidio Flex Profiles Advanced Edition now!

Immidio Flex Profiles Express Edition (version 6.0.x) and its predecessor Login Consultants Flex Profile Kit are well established user profile management solutions. Thousands of corporate customers around the world implemented one of these Flex Profiles freeware editions in their Windows environments. The reason for this is very simple: Flex Profiles is based on a proven methodology, it is lightning fast, it does not require extra backend servers and it only leaves a small footprint in memory and network – advantages appreciated by many IT professionals and system administrators.

Now, given the facts that Immidio Flex Profiles Express Edition is so good and available for free, why would anybody want to go for a retail edition of Immidio Flex Profiles? People started asking me this question since we announced a retail edition of Immidio Flex Profiles. In the following, I give you 11 good reasons making Immidio Flex Profiles Advanced Edition an attractive option.

1. Support: Immidio Flex Profiles Advanced Edition is an officially supported product, automatically taking advantage of the Immidio Response support offerings.
2. Additional operating system platforms: Immidio Flex Profiles Advanced Edition was not only tested on Windows Server 2003 Terminal Services and Citrix XenApp 4.5/5.0, but is also supported on Windows Server 2008 Terminal Services, Windows XP, Windows Vista and Windows 7, extending the scope of Flex Profiles to the current server and workstation platforms. The upcoming Immidio Flex Profiles Version 7.0 will also support Windows Server 2008 R2 Remote Desktop Services.
3. 64 Bit: Immidio Flex Profiles Advanced Edition is shipped with both 32-bit and 64-bit runtime components (FlexEngine), with the 64-bit FlexEngine allowing full access to the registry and the file system on 64-bit editions of Microsoft Windows.
4. Automated generation of application configuration files: Immidio Flex Profiles Advanced Edition introduces a mechanism that automates the administrator’s work during the process of generating application-specific Flex Profiles configuration files (.ini files). As a result, Flex Profiles application configuration files can be produced easily by less experienced IT professionals and system administrators. This feature is also beneficial for more experienced IT professionals as it removes the need to manually go through some boring and repetitive activities when creating application configuration files.
5. Graphical management console: Immidio Flex Profiles Advanced Edition includes a graphical workbench, providing an easy-to-use management environment for application configuration files (.ini files) and other important Flex Profiles settings.
6. Windows Group Policy integration: Immidio Flex Profiles Advanced Edition hooks into Microsoft Active Directory, allowing central configuration of the Flex Profiles runtime component through Group Policy Objects in addition to the established command-line parameters.
7. Profile archive compression and streaming: Immidio Flex Profiles Advanced Edition has built-in compression and streaming algorithms creating profile files optimized for networks with limited bandwidth.
8. Simple framework configuration: The free editions of Flex Profiles include so-called framework scripts for adaptation to individual customer requirements. All of the logic included in the framework scripts was moved into the runtime component of Immidio Flex Profiles Advanced Edition, simplifying the configuration effort significantly.
9. On-demand elevated user privileges: Immidio Flex Profiles Advanced Edition introduces an optional service that gives users access to predefined areas of the registry with elevated user rights. This allows the modification of a user’s individual password and certificate settings from a non-privileged context.
10. Application streaming support: Immidio Flex Profiles Advanced Edition is compatible to application streaming and isolation technologies, such as Microsoft App-V.
11. Common settings: Immidio Flex Profiles Advanced Edition supports a number of common Windows-related settings without the need for specific .ini files.

In summary, Immidio Flex Profiles Advanced Edition was optimized to fulfill common requirements of corporate environments in terms of management, compliance and supportability. If you want to learn more about Immidio Flex Profiles Advanced Edition, contact us through info@immidio.com.

When looking at all the different application provisioning methodologies available today, I get the feeling that you need a PHD if you want to keep track of how they work and what they require to give users fast access to dynamic application sets. On one side, new virtualization technologies ensure unprecedented application integrity, compatibility and stability. On the other side, there is a lack of commonly available self-controlled ways to assign these applications to users.

But I believe that this is exactly what matters; users want to have on-demand access to applications, independent of how they are provided or provisioned. In the best of all worlds, the users’ workspace environment would be able to predict which applications a user will need in the next minute. But giving the user a simple way to select and self-assigned required applications through an intuitive interface will also do the job. As a result the right icon is created on the user desktop or the start menu is populated as needed in that very moment.

Most application virtualization vendors are aware of this fact. So they tend to create a vendor-specific solution, allowing users to self-provision applications in their preferred fashion, leveraging only one specific technology. We at Immidio strongly believe that this is not what customers want because it’s an “all or nothing” approach. We think that a solution should be vendor-agnostic and independent of a specific application deployment mechanism. And this is exactly what Immidio AppScriber is about!

Immidio AppScriber allows Windows users to self-assign and run applications with no or only minimal delay. Most importantly, the underlying mechanism is completely platform-agnostic. For Immidio AppScriber it doesn’t make any difference if applications are provided through Microsoft Installer, Microsoft App-V, Microsoft RemoteApp, Citrix XenApp published applications, Citrix XenApp streamed applications or VMware ThinApp. There are no dependencies of a Citrix Receiver infrastructure or application streaming back-end services -only Active Directory is required. Immidio AppScriber makes an end to “vendor exclusiveness”, it allows a great variety of application provisioning solutions and products to be combined seamlessly.

Independent of the application provisioning platforms involved, an AppScriber administrator specifies the application sets users are authorized to access and tracks their usage through real-time reporting. From the user perspective, applications are presented through AppScriber’s configurable web front-end which may easily be integrated into existing corporate portals. The user interface is customizable to reflect the look and feel of the company. Since the list of available applications shows up in a familiar interface, no training is needed for business users.

Immidio AppScriber’s independence of application provisioning and deployment mechanisms is clearly one of its unique selling points. There is no “lock-in” effect to a specific technology. If you want to know more about this, feel free to contact us through info@immidio.com.

A couple of weeks ago, we introduced AppScriber as a brand new Immidio product. Now more and more people I meet when I’m at conferences or community events ask me what it’s good for. In short, Immidio AppScriber is a web application that provides users with the functionality to self-assign Windows applications. It makes it easier for the users to manage their own start menus and their application icons. With Immidio AppScriber the user is in control while staying within the boundaries pre-defined by a system administrator.

But who needs such a product? The answer is simple. Immidio AppScriber is ideal for IT departments that want to reduce costs and labor when providing their users with centrally deployed and managed applications. The product is specifically designed for IT environments with large numbers of users that need flexible access to dynamic application sets, in particular universities, hospitals and all enterprises with contractors or rapidly changing work forces. Immidio AppScriber is perfectly suited for administrators who don’t want to worry about manually assigning the right applications to users.

Technically, Immidio AppScriber allows an end-user to activate and deactivate applications through a secure self-service web front-end, after an administrator made him or her member of the AppScriber user group. As a result, AppScriber helps the users to subscribe and control applications that are relevant to them. The only prerequisite related to the underlying application provisioning platform is that all applications are assigned to individual Active Directory security groups. At this point it is important to note that the solution is completely vendor-agnostic. This means that today’s most relevant Windows application deployment and application virtualization technologies — such as Microsoft Installer, Microsoft App-V, Microsoft RemoteApp, Citrix XenApp published applications or VMware ThinApp — work perfectly well with Immidio AppScriber.

So, if you want to empower your users to get the Windows applications they need on-demand from any place and without intervention by an administrator, give Immidio AppScriber a try.

It’s been a fascinating period the past 10 months setting up Immidio as a new software company in the virtualization market space. On the one hand Immidio is a real start-up with all the challenges that it brings, but on the other hand it’s a spin-off from a well-established expert consulting firm in application virtualization and deployment technologies. As such, we’ve inherited an installed base of more than 10.000 installations worldwide of our flagship product Immidio Flex Profiles. Moreover, we can rely on the expertise of several Microsoft Most Valuable Professionals (MVP’s) and Citrix Technology Professionals (CTP’s) within Login Consultants and expert opinions of its large customer base.

Immidio is a vendor of software products that address specific issues that arise when integrating multiple virtualization technologies into existing enterprise IT environments. We offer so-called point solutions with a clear return on investment, and will stay away from building expensive product suites where you are forced to purchase functionality you will never use.

Recently we’ve launched our first retail product, Immidio AppScriber, streamlining the distribution of applications within organizations. With Immidio AppScriber, IT departments control the applications available to end-users, while allowing end-users themselves to select the applications they need. No further IT involvement is necessary, resulting in significant savings.

Our development team is on track with Immidio Flex Profiles Advanced Edition, scheduled to be released before the summer holidays. Immidio Flex Profiles optimizes the management of user profiles in virtualization environments. It combines the advantages of mandatory profiles and scripting to achieve superior performance and flexibility. Among the new features that the Advanced Edition will bring are greatly simplified deployment, a graphical user interface (including a wizard to help create INI files), out-of-the box support for common settings, 64-bit support and compressed profile archives.

Please return to this blog on a regular basis as we will use it to share market information, trends, product news, announcements and opinions.