Viewfinity was mentioned in a Wall Street Journal article this week.  Below is an excerpt with a link to the full article.

Though there’s nuances to each product, most of the small companies in this sector are either providing a subscription service with a lower price tag and ability to incorporate mobile workers in the platform, or selling virtual desktop technologies that enable customers to get a better handle on management by storing all their desktops inside the data center.

Here’s a sampling of start-ups and small companies trying to change this sector:

Viewfinity Inc. is selling a subscription service geared towards smaller companies that don’t have the means to buy and run a traditional PC management suite. Since the service runs over the Internet, it easily pulls mobile workers under its umbrella- something that’s difficult from the traditional on-premise vendors to accomplish. Investors include Giza Venture Capital, JK&B Capital and Longworth Venture Partners.

Read the full article: http://blogs.wsj.com/venturecapital/2010/07/26/start-ups-look-to-disrupt-stodgy-pc-management-space/

Viewfinity Windows 7 User Migration Product

Independent MVP Product Review

Conducted by:

Matthew Hudson                                                     

MCTS, MVP - Configuration Manager                                                    

Network Coordinator, Information Technology Services

"I was very impressed with your product.  It definitely made profile migration a breeze!  It was a big time saver."

The Viewfinity User Migration application is a great tool with potential to create a seamless and effortless migration of user files and settings between Windows XP and Windows 7.   The advantage over other products is the lack of application installation required on the host or target machines as well as the ability to put the time frame for migration of data into the hands of the users.  I simply copied the USMT folder from my SCCM server to my console machine. 

Read the complete product review here:  http://www.viewfinity.com/Resources/MVPReviews/MVPMigrationReviewerSummary.pdf    

Connect with Viewfinity featuring Gartner Research on recent trends related to how organizations are revisiting PC control policies and increasing desktop lockdown.

Gartner states, “Survey results and feedback from Gartner clients show that organizations are increasing the number of PCs that IT controls by removing administrative rights and using other measures to control PC configurations.” This practice reduces system vulnerability by allowing end users to use only the applications and desktop functions that are deemed safe. However, to avoid merely shifting support calls related to unstable PCs to a high frequency of incidental type calls, companies should consider privilege management tools that will allow them to manage by user type or role.

Read this eNewsletter and learn more about PC lockdown policy trends, as well as best practices and approaches for various types of organizations.

https://www.viewfinity.com/Resources/WhitePaperSignup.aspx?cid=GartnerPMNewsletter

As the feature sets of PC lifecycle management (PCLM) suites have increased, so has the complexity of their software. Organizations that don't allocate enough effort to properly manage the PCLM infrastructure are often unable to provide the desired level of service to their users.

For this and many other reasons, cloud-based solutions are emerging for a variety of systems management functions. Just as some companies are well-suited for cloud-based CRM, some companies are more well-suited than others for cloud-based PCLM. Is your company one of them? Dwain Kinghorn, Partner at SageCreek Partners and member of the Viewfinity Board, addresses this issue in greater detail on ebizQ: http://bit.ly/9acbxS.

You can download Dwain’s complete white paper from Viewfinity here: http://bit.ly/9HPNoh

As Viewfinity’s product ease, innovation, and value continues to march on, it’s interesting (but not surprising) to start seeing Viewfinity expertise start showing up in job requests.

If you are a Viewfinity admin, or have experience with Viewfinity systems management, Work Bridge Associates has a job opening you might be interested in:

http://www.workbridgeassociates.com/JOB/145600/IT-Help-Desk-Network-Administration-Support-.aspx

Lee Pender spent his lunch hour with Viewfinity – and has some awesome things to say about us.

Read through Lee’s lunchtime report:

http://rcpmag.com/blogs/lee-pender/2010/06/viewfinity-updates-cloud-based-systems-management-package.aspx

Prestigious Award Recognizes Most Promising Private Technology Ventures

WALTHAM, MA, June 15, 2010 - Viewfinity (www.viewfinity.com), the innovator of privilege and systems management, announced today it has been selected as a Finalist for Red Herring's North America 100 award, a prestigious list honoring the year’s most promising private technology ventures from the world North American business region.

Finalists for the 2010 edition of the Red Herring 100 North America award are selected based upon their technological innovation, management strength, market size, investor record, customer acquisition, and financial health. During the several months leading up to the announcement, hundreds of companies in the telecommunications, security, Web 2.0, software, hardware, biotech, and clean tech industries sent in their submissions to qualify for the award.

"This year was especially difficult," said Alex Vieux, publisher and CEO of Red Herring. "Despite the global economic situation, there were many great companies producing really innovative and amazing products that we had a difficult time narrowing the pool and selecting the finalists. Viewfinity shows great promise therefore deserves to be among the Finalists. Now we’re faced with the difficult task of selecting the Top 100 winners of Red Herring North America award. We know that this year’s crop will grow into some amazing companies that are sure to go far."

“We are honored that our unique approach to privilege and systems management is being recognized by the Red Herring judges,” said Gil Rapaport, President of Viewfinity. “In these tough economic times, IT professionals need a way to better control desktop operating environments and to reduce resolution times without adding additional IT staff. Viewfinity does this for both stationary and mobile users through its true native remote privilege and systems management capabilities.”

The Red Herring editorial team selected the most innovative companies from a pool of hundreds from across North America. The nominees are evaluated on both quantitative and qualitative criteria, such as financial performance, technology innovation, quality of management, execution of strategy, and integration into their respective industries.

This unique assessment of potential is complemented by a review of the actual track record and standing of a company, which allows Red Herring to see past the “buzz” and make the list an invaluable instrument for discovering and advocating the greatest business opportunities in the industry.

About Viewfinity

Viewfinity offers privilege and systems management solutions to manage, support and control desktops, laptops and Windows servers.  Viewfinity is a single platform to support on-network and mobile users that allows IT administrators to manage and control any computer over the WAN regardless of worker location. 

Viewfinity complements traditional systems management, such as SCCM and SMS, by offering new flexibility to manage administrator rights for locked down computers.  With its web-hosted model, Viewfinity solves IT’s greatest headache--management of mobile workers—by providing true native remote systems management capabilities and absolute network independence.  For more information, visit www.viewfinity.com.

-New OS Image Deployment, Patch Management, Privilege Management and Interactive Dashboard Features Continue Viewfinity’s Commitment to Customers-

Waltham, MA – June 14, 2010 – Viewfinity (www.viewfinity.com), the innovator of privilege and systems management, today released version 3.0 of its solution suite. Nearly 3 months after its debut launch into the market, Viewfinity continues to make good on its commitment to customer-led product development and to build products that are critically needed in the market.

See the new features and updates in a live webcast demonstration, June 16th at 11:45 am ET

Register here to attend: http://www.viewfinity.com/Resources/LiveDemo.aspx?reg=sm

Additional Viewfinity features / functionality include:

· Privilege Management: administrators can create policies that will execute scripts without needing to assign local administrator rights to the end user; identify applications that require administrator rights, and permit or block the use of child processes

· OS Deployment: creates an exact disk image of the laptop/desktop including the operating system, configuration files and all applications and deploys the image to multiple systems simultaneously, making it ideal for rapid bare-metal installations (OS deployment via Acronis Snap Deploy)

· Patch Management: fully manages the distribution of updates released through Microsoft Update to computers in your network as well as mobile computers not connected to the internal network

· Viewfinity Dashboard: provides a quick view into the operations and status of the company assets through live monitoring of select desktops and servers to identify problematic areas

· Windows 7 OS Deployment with Viewfinity User Migration: a valuable add-on to the Acronis image deployment software for domain based migration of user personal settings, application settings and user data files to prepare for and perform the migration from Windows XP or Vista to Windows 7.

Viewfinity also complements traditional systems management, such as SCCM, by offering new flexibility to manage administrator rights for locked down computers.

Viewfinity Systems Management solution can be delivered from a web-hosted platform or installed on premises. All desktop management is done through a secure and encrypted HTTPS connection which provides the ideal method for managing PCs for remote and mobile workers. Its web-hosted platform is also ideal for proof-of-concept evaluations because it eliminates the need to build a complex server environment to evaluate or deploy the software.

Online registration is available for trial evaluations here: http://www.viewfinity.com/SaasStart.aspx

Tags: Viewfinity, Desktop Management, Systems Management, Patch Management, OS Deployment, Software Deployment, Privilege Management, SaaS, Windows 7 Migration

About Viewfinity

Viewfinity is the innovator of systems and privilege management via cloud-computing, allowing IT professionals to focus on managing systems and not the platform's infrastructure. With the cloud model, IT can be up and running quickly to provide management, support and control for desktops, servers and laptops. This makes it extremely cost effective and easy for IT to support local as well as mobile workers.

Viewfinity uses virtualization technology as the foundation to simplify and automate deployment and management of applications, licenses and assets. Viewfinity also complements traditional systems management by offering compliance adherence to flexibly manage privileges for locked down computers. Viewfinity's cloud approach delivers immediate and long-term value, scales with business need, and eliminates the equipment, training, and substantially higher costs of on-premise implementations. Based in Waltham, MA, information on Viewfinity systems management solutions can be found at www.viewfinity.com.

Over the weekend I had to test a couple of products so I can recommend a solution to a real problem for one of my clients. One of my clients that runs a chain of farm implement dealerships (the green kind.)

The major problem my client is having is that one of their programs requires local administrative privileges. I think probably because it does direct hardware calls. Some of the users have laptops they have to take out into the field to hook up to farm machinery to perform diagnostics. This has presented a problem.

Privilege Elevation Made Simple… | My Life as an IT Guy

If you’re looking for great content about Viewfinity solutions, we’ve gathered few select links for you to Viewfinity information captured around the Internet.

• Viewfinity Named As Finalist for MITX Cloud-Computing Award

• Viewfinity offers SMEs PC management – IT-Web

• Intune Shows Need for Cloud Solutions, Says Viewfinity VMBlog

Cloud-Computing Companies to Watch - Network World

• Privilege Elevation Made Simple – The IT Guy

• IT industry analyst firm focused on cloud computing and IT management, recaps Viewfinity – Neovise