should the exite carefree desktop for whatever reasons not fit your organisation, for example because you use a special application that is less suitable for virtualisation - e.g. autocad - we can help you with our vast experience of more than 10 years in centralised deployment and administration of desktops.

cut your cost of ownership by half

exite has developed a methodology with accompanying automated tools, enabling organisations to dramatically reduce the total cost of ownership of their office workplace environment - from approximately 100 seats and up.  basically, this is an approach which allows you to treat every workstation, regardless of location and user, as any standard ict resource, and manage it as such.

often imitated, never matched.

• "rock-solid" workstation stability, no "crashes", no complaints
• admin and support without having to go to the user
• structural savings of 50% or more on your "cost of ownership"
• cut your support staff by half
• reduce number of helpdesk calls by 80%
• smooth roll-out to users/desks
• unattended distribution of new applications, versions, updates, patches, etc.
• full authorisation and security control
• smart licensing through "metering" of actual usage
• integrated asset management

does this look familiar to you?

more often than not, the ict administration and support crew falter into an ever-increasing backlog of incident calls, and are then very likely inclined to:

• ad-hoc problem resolution (the "beeper system")
• giving precedence to users with the biggest mouth or highest authority
• determining their priorities along the lines of "most fun in, first out"
• postponing installing upgrades, updates, and patches indefinitely
• getting sloppy with security, documentation and administration ("no time")
• merely curing symptoms

...and don't get around to preventive administration and maintenance.  this in turn causes new problems, such as virus infections or unauthorised access, due to the lack of regular systems maintenance.  moreover, thoughtlessly rushed implementations are guaranteed to autonomously create their own maintenance nightmare in due time.

at the end of the day, you may find yourself amongst an unproportionally sizeable crowd of administrators and support personnel, with rather varying skill levels, who are frantically running around the organization in order to put out fires.  by now, you probably have no idea anymore of their whereabouts, let alone what exactly it is they are up to all day long - you just hope for the best.  not until one of them offers his resignation, are you going to discover how good he was at 'job protection', and how vulnerable this has made you ("john always handled those things, we haven't got a clue how").

your staff are complaining about the high work pressure, your customers about your miserable service level, and your manager about your exceeding the budget. you become more and more frustrated.

how does "carefree corporate desktop" work?

the exite carefree corporate desktop - at a helicopter level - may be summarised as follows:

for each software component in use within the organisation, a structured, self-installing implementation package is built.  this only needs only done once.  subsequently, it makes no difference anymore whether components are rolled out twice, a hundred times, or even a thousand times.  distribution and maintenance occur fully unattended.

skilled personnel for roll-outs is no longer required.  the deployment of a pc or laptop can be handled perfectly well by staff members of e.g. your warehouse, mail room or internal services dept.  all that is needed is hook up the workstation and boot it up from the network instead of its built-in hard disk.

the exite carefree corporate desktop installation executes automatically, fully unattended and without need for monitoring or manual intervention.  (in one of our customers' offices, we actually witnessed two untrained employees effortlessly unpack and deploy approximately 50 new office desktop computers, ready for use, in under two hours).

the authorisation of a user for access to a business application, including the distribution to his workstation, can be handled by the application administrator or someone from the help desk, literally in seconds.

the methodology does not stop at the initial setup of pcs and laptops.  the complete roll-out, management, support, security and administration, of hardware, licenses, applications, drivers, upgrades, fixes, patches, and so forth are integral parts of the approach.  this protects your investment on the long term.

each time a user logs in on a workstation, the carefree corporate desktop checks for available updates, fixes etc. (for example, new virus definitions), and installs these automatically.

each time a user starts up a (business) application not part of the basic standard workstation setup, the launcher checks the user's authorisation for access. the first time around, the application is then installed automatically. after that, the carefree corporate desktop also checks for the availability of new versions, upgrades, fixes etc. for that application each time.

options

of course, variations on the basics of this methodology are possible.  

• for instance, we once built an environment with different "standard workstations" depending on the type of user.
  
  
• furthermore, variations can be incorporated in terms of multiple language support, or the level of freedom given to users to allow them to maintain their workstation themselves.
  
  
• you may also wish to deploy especially "closed" workstations e.g. for specific (batch) processes, or for demonstration purposes (business fairs, showrooms, training courses).

advantages

• roll-out new (releases of) applications, drivers, fixes, patches and such, to all relevant workstations, protecting your investment.
• deploy applications to users rather than to workstations.
• roaming users no longer pose problems.
• fully supports laptops, netbooks, and such.
• less down-time, more satisfied users.
• the number of support calls already decreases noticeably within a couple of weeks.
• as soon as two to four months after implementation, typically 50% less workload in your support and administration teams.
• substantial savings on the cost of support staff.
• problem resolution is structural, eliminating re-occurrences.
• surprises are as good as ruled out due to standardisation.
• any problems that do arise are usually less severe.
• for most issues, a solution is readily available.
• takes your support organisation to the next level, providing a path to career growth.
• increase support efficiency through the use of remote support tools.
• better overview of the actual use of hardware, software, applications, etc.
• increase efficiency of license usage.
• better resource planning.
• better deployment planning of apllications and/or workstations.

all of this results in a significantly lower cost of ownership.

general electric

"tip" (transport international pool) is a subsidiary of ge capital services, primarily aimed at the lease and sales of over-the-road trailers.

we applied the basic principle of the carefree corporate desktop for the first time at the end of 1995, rolling out a multi-language windows for workgroups 3.11 setup to some 500 pcs and laptops in some 70 branch offices across 9 countries.  the roll-out was completed successfully by three employees inside two months.

the second generation of the carefree corporate desktop was developed in 1997 for the installation and maintenance of a multi-language setup of windows on more than 1,400 pcs and laptops, spread over 150 offices in 12 countries.  the actual rollout process was outsourced to a third party, and again required merely three months (!) to complete.

the almost 1,500 workstations throughout europe were managed by no more than 3 administrators, centrally from tip's amsterdam head office. 

aalsmeer flower auction (before the merger)

vw4:  auction workstation 4

the aalsmeer flower auction was the world's largest auction.  the third generation of the carefree corporate desktop was developed there in 1999 when, in the context of the y2k project, all workstations were migrated to windows nt 4.0 workstation.  the project was known internally as vw4 ("veiling werkplek 4").

the environment delivered consisted of in excess of 800 pcs and laptops, and 125 applications of very different nature.  the carefree corporate desktop methodology was improved further, and part of its tools had been redesigned.

by virtue of the much more stable and low-maintenance new vw4-environment, the vba were able to reduce the number of support staff, mostly contractors, from 17 to 8 persons.  moreover, work pressure in the help desk and server administration teams was reduced substantially, ultimately even by appox. 80%.

the ict manager of the flower auction praised the carefree corporate desktop as "simply the best investment he has ever done".  exite was subsequently invited to provide counseling on the long-term strategy.  furthermore, in 2002 exite was invited by the aalsmeer flower auction to oversee the design of the next generation of workstations, vw5.

vw5:  auction workstation 5

design, development and implementation of the fully automated installation of windows xp.  this included migrating over 1,400 pcs and laptops, and 350 applications from vw4 to vw5.  installing ran unattended using msi-packages and pxe network boot.

the entire project was delivered within plan and budget.  this complete environment could be administrated by three persons.

floraholland flower auctions (after the merger)

after the merger in 2008 it was decided to use the vw5 workstation (please see above) in all 7 branches of floraholland.  this required the carefree corporate desktop to be made location-independent, and an additional 250+ applications to be incorporated.  moreover, the corporate desktop was given a new design and a technical face-lift.

the target was to create one uniform auction workstation allowing everybody to do his or her work no matter the location.  the basis was again formed by exite's concepts and methods.

this new carefree corporate desktop was - on plan and within budget - deployed including some 600 applications to 3,250 workstations across 7 branches. 

this complete environment is still being administrated by a mere three persons.