The future of Softricity

I have been at the Softricity Inside/Out event in Vienna to hear about the recent acquisition of Softricity by Microsoft. There will be changes, but do not worry.

Microsoft has a huge focus on systems management. You can see this in the way Microsoft System Center is developing. The application virtualisation will be a big step forwards for Microsoft in application provisioning within the to be Windows management platform.

Application virtualisation is a value add technology to Microsoft and they will definitely not destroy this product. The technology will probably be adapted in the future products, but after Vista and Office 2007. The Vista and Office launch are today's priority ONE.

This means that drastic changes to Softricity will definitely not happen before Q2 2007. Business as usual for Softricity partners and customers.

If I think about the future of sequences out of the box, just as Microsoft installer distributions and maybe even applications on demand in the Windows Live concept, I get really excited.

My advise to partners: get your System Center skills up to date and jump on the train. License volume is expected to grow from 500k to 30 million.

My advise to customers: any investment in application virtualisation is future prove. Having the concept of application virtualisation in your IT infrastructure, is simply getting ready for future of Windows application provisioning.

Virtualisation will remain cool stuff ;-).

Fact: Microsoft will buy Softricity

Yesterday evening at the Softricity Inside/Out event, Microsoft officialy announced the acquisition of Softricity. As soon as I am back, I will inform you about the details I know.

Rumor: Microsoftricity

Today, CRN published an article about Microsoft is in talks to buy application virtualization software vendor Softricity.

Just before the Softricity Inside/Out event in Vienna next week, I read about this. I will definitely try to get more info on this next week.

The aquisition would be a huge step forwards for Microsoft in virtualization. For Softricity the aquisition would be a huge step forwards in shareholders wallets ;-). I just hope that Softricity's technology remains as valuable as it is now.

Read more at the source.

Release: Qliner Hotkeys 2.0

At the end of April a friend of mine released Qliner Hotkeys 2.0. Hotkeys is a very usefull utility that allows you to program the Windows-key or even equal functionality with the Cap Lock-key. For those who have IBM laptops ;-).

After installation and a re-logon, Hotkeys is automatically enabled. Simply press and hold the Windows-key and a keyboard layout appears with some pre-defined shortcuts. The keyboard can also be activated by Windows-key + Z.

On the keyboard you can drag & drop shortcuts that are then automatically assigned to the appropriate key combination. Pretty cool, I must say. Hotkeys also has built-in tools, such as volume control and a clock.

Read more and download at the source.