As part of Synergy Underground project, we interviewed many of the people in the XenApp booth in the TechLab to talk about the different features and components of Citrix XenApp Platinum.
(Each of these videos were shot and streamed live to the Underground site via a Nokia N95 cell phone. The convienience and ability to stream live video directly to the net is the trade off for the lower audio and video quality. Read this post for an explanation of the process and a video on how the live streaming worked.)
Here are three of those video interviews -
Jay Tomlin on Smart Access
David Wagner talks about the new User profile Manager Tech Preview
Victor Thu talks about Easy Call
(low audio in first half)
The Citrix Federal Sales team is planning a XenServer webinar for tomorrow at 1:30 pm EST. See below for more information -
Make the Virtual Data Center a Reality
Citrix XenServer is the simplest and most efficient way to virtualize servers and deliver a dynamic data center. Citrix XenServer is a proven, powerful and feature-rich server virtualization platform with a real-world price point. XenServer combines comprehensive server virtualization capabilities with unparalleled scalability, performance, economics and ease of use. As a core component of the Citrix Application Delivery suite, XenServer offers unique strategic value for organizations with an eye on Desktop Virtualization.
Attend webinar and learn:
- How to optimize your infrastructure
- Improve ROI with improved hardware utilization
- Save time and money while achieving more with
the resources you already own - How Microsoft and Citrix are joined to provide customers
with best-of-breed solutions
When:
Thursday, May 29, 2008
1:30 PM - 2:30 PM EDT
Click here to register. UPDATE:You can watch the archived recording at the same link.
All attendees to the live event will receive a copy of the book "Running Xen: A Hands-On Guide to the Art of Virtualization". UPDATE:This offer was for attending the LIVE EVENT ONLY.
Many you have seen the Synergy Underground site by now. As I wrote in the post announcing Synergy Underground prior to the conference, the goal for Synergy Underground was to give those of you unable to attend an inside view into the event. I have received many questions about how the concept came into being, how we did the live video, and how many video views the site has had since the site launch last week. I put together a presentation that answers these questions.
Several of my friends have given me a lot of well deserved grief over the live interviews I shot where you can hear me do a count down at the beginning. Yes, you can hear me say "two, one" in several of the videos. I did a countdown to help the interview subject prepare for the beginning of the live video. Some people were more than a little nervous about being broadcast live on Citrix.com (very understandably) so I thought a countdown was a good idea at the time. In my defense, most of the time when I hit the stream button on the N95 there was a couple seconds delay before the connection was established and the video began to stream. Obviously, that delay was inconsistent, so on some videos you do hear me count down. I have also heard about how many times I opened a video with "Okay". The interview subjects were not the only ones being broadcast live for the first time on the internet, the guy behind the camera was new at this as well. C'est la vie. I could have spent a lot of time editing that part out of all the videos I did and reposted them, but I decided to leave them as is, warts and all. 
Despite the audible count downs, the intermittent data signals and the eternity it takes to upload videos to BrightCove, this project was a lot of fun and a big success in my opinion. I hope we get the opportunity to do this again.
There are many changes at the Citrix user conference this year. The new name, Citrix Synergy, is only the most obvious difference.
iForum is now a breakout session track, and the IT 2.0 Business Symposium track, the Application Delivery track and the Geek Speak track (including Geek Speak Live! and Geek Speak BarCamp) are all new. There are more technical sessions than ever (over 90 total). There are more industry heavyweight keynote speakers than ever before, and a keynote by a Senior Vice President from the largest software company on the planet (and our most important partner).
For the first time ever, we have an opening keynote from a best selling (and controversial) author on technology and business, and a closing keynote by a very accomplished comedian and actor. Citrix Synergy is shaping up to be the most engaging, interactive, technical and relevant Citrix user conference in our history.
I recognize that many of you across the world will not be able to attend Citrix Synergy for a number of reasons (such as the rapidly increasing costs of energy and fuel). Due to constraints such as distance, time or an overwhelming work load, several of you may have not been able to come to a Citrix conference in sometime (or ever).
The members of the Community and Solutions team at Citrix would like to bring a taste of this conference directly to you. We have put together a plan to show you the face behind the name Citrix Synergy - the faces of the attendees, partners and Citrix employees who all come together to make this event happen. We want to bring you an inside (and unofficial) look at the people and events at our user conference.
Citrix Synergy Underground will bring you inside the George R. Brown Convention Center in Houston during the conference. Our team (including Rich Crusco, Vishal Ganeriwala, Gus Pinto and me) will bring you instant text updates from the keynotes via Twitter. You will see numerous live video (via Qik and Mogulus TV) and recorded video interviews (via BrightCove TV). These video will be taken inside the Convention Center common areas and halls, the Exhibit floor, Tech Lab, and Geek Speak Live and Geek Speak BarCamp (no keynote or breakout videos). We plan to speak to as many customers, partners, resellers, and Citrix employees as we can at the event, and show you many of the great demos and new technology that will be unveiled. We hope to give you an inside look at the event that you have never seen before at any user conference.
Our team put together a short video to introduce themselves and the Citrix Synergy Underground
site.
(Thanks to Bryon Thomas for pointing me to Qik. Thanks to Gus Pinto for putting together the web page with Microsoft Expression Engine, and Saul Gurdus and his Web Services team for hosting the site for us and providing tech support)
Our underground coverage will begin formally on Tuesday, May 20th. Tune in to http://community.citrix.com/underground to watch.
Voting is now closed on the XenDesktop Video Tips Contest. Here are the final vote talliesfor the best desktop virtualization video tip -
The Winner of the 16 GB Apple iPod Touch is "20 Desktops Delivered in 20 Minutes" -
The winner of the 8 GB Apple iPod Touch is "VDI Made as Easy as Pie" -
The winner of the Apple iPod Nano is "XenDesktop User Experience" -
Congratulations to the winners. All of the other finalists will receive an Apple iPod Shuffle 2 GB. If you are a winner and are attending Citrix Synergy, please let me know. I would like to recognize any winners at the Geek Speak BarCamp event on Wednesday evening.
I ask each of the winners to send me your address and contact info to citrixblogger
@citrix.com.
Thanks again for participating and voting in the XenDesktop Video Tips contest.
All twenty speaking slots for the first ever Geek Speak BarCamp are filled and the scheduled is locked in tight. (Read background on Geek Speak BarCamp here, here and here). This event happens on the evening of May 21st at Synergy in Houston (in room 360 right after Geek Speak Live).
I have communicated to all the speakers the schedule, and this is now the final one I will post before Citrix Synergy. We have had a few changes (including one speaker dropping due to another commitment) but we have twenty full sessions.
The line up now includes FOUR Citrix Technology Specialists, four consultants, two Escalation Tech Support Engineers, four Product Managers, a HP Print Driver Developer and a Senior Architect from a large healthcare company.
If you have not yet registered for Citrix Synergy, you can click here to to complete your registration. I look forward to seeing you at Synergy and the Geek Speak BarCamp.
There is one day left to get your vote in for the XenDesktop Video Tips Contest here. As of this posting, there have been almost 300 votes. The video tip "VDI Made as EASY as Pie" by Gareth Jameshas expanded its lead a bit over the "XenDesktop User Experience" video.
VDI Made as Easy as Pie
XenDesktop User Experience Comparison
The "XenDesktop with SC VMM and Hyper V" video is in third place.
XenDesktop with SC VMM and Hyper V
Check out these great desktop virtualization videos and cast your vote now.
The creators of the top three video tips as voted by you will receive prizes including an Apple iPod Touch 16 G, an Apple iPod Touch 8 GB, and a Apple iPod Nano.
The Citrix Innovation Award is "designed to recognize Citrix customers that strategically leverage application delivery to gain a competitive business advantage". Last year's winner, Cox Communications, is a great example of this.
The voting is now open for this years Citrix Innovation Award -
...the three finalists for the annual 2008 Citrix Innovation Award: Bechtel Corporation, Cocamar Cooperativa Agroindustrial and Mutual of Omaha. These finalists were chosen by a panel of IT industry experts, including an industry analyst and a past Citrix Innovation Award winner. The finalists were selected in recognition of their innovative use of Citrix application delivery and virtualization solutions to address organizational or market challenges and advance their businesses. The three finalists will be recognized for their significant accomplishments at the upcoming Citrix Synergy™ 2008 conference, held at the George R. Brown Convention Center in Houston from May 20 to May 23. The winner will be determined by votes cast both online and during the conference by registered attendees and will be announced on May 21 in the keynote session. To cast your vote now, go to http://www.citrix.com/innovationaward .
The Citrix Innovation Award is for Citrix customers who innovate in utilizing technology to make a significant impact on their business. Ultimately, information technology is about delivering applications to end users so they can perform business transactions. These three nominees have innovated in their use of Citrix technology to cut costs, reduce time to revenue for projects, and to mitigate risk.
Here is the video from Betchel Corporation -
Next up is Cocamar Cooperativa Agroindustrial-
And finally the video for Mutual of Omaha (yes, the Wild Kingdom guys for those who remember that show) -
The judges for this years Citrix Innovation Award are listed below -
•Josh Nelson - vice president of network and information technology, Cox Communications (Winner, 2007 Citrix Innovation Award)
•Steve Greenberg - founder and president of Thin Client Computing
•Michael Rose - associate research analyst, IDC
• Abolfazl Sirjani - senior director, advanced products, Citrix
•Wes Wasson - senior vice president and chief marketing officer, Citrix
How to Vote
You can vote now for the Citrix Innovation award online at http://www.citrix.com/innovationaward. The winner will be named during the keynote session at Citrix Synergy 2008 on Wednesday, May 21st. Citrix Synergy will be held on May 20th to May 23rd at the George R. Brown Convention Center in Houston.
If you have not yet registered for Citrix Synergy, you can click here to to complete your registration. I look forward to seeing you at Synergy..
You still have time to get your vote in for the XenDesktop Video Tips Contest here. As of this posting, there have been almost 200 votes. Currently "VDI Made as EASY as Pie" by Gareth James maintains a slight lead.
The creators of the top three video tips as voted by you will receive prizes including an Apple iPod Touch 16 G, an Apple iPod Touch 8 GB, and a Apple iPod Nano.
In my previous post on Geek Speak Bar Camp (May 21st at Citrix Synergy), we had fourteen of the twenty speaking slots filled. As of now, all twenty speaking slots for the first ever Geek Speak BarCamp are filled. (Read background on Geek Speak BarCamp here, here and here).
The line up now includes three Citrix Technology Specialists, four consultants, two Escalation Tech Support Engineers, a VDI Specialist from VMWare, four Product Managers, an HP Print Driver Developer and a Senior Architect from a large healthcare company.
I am looking forward to flying to Houston and getting this event started. I think that after seeing this line up and the list of technical sessions in the other tracks, I think you will agree with Shawn Bass when he wrote -
I'm getting the general feeling like this might just be the most technical Citrix iForum ever
I am still working on juggling the time schedule to meet everyones equipment requirements and time constraints. I expect to finalize by Monday or Tuesday.
If you have not yet registered for Citrix Synergy, you can click here to to complete your registration. I look forward to seeing you at Synergy and the Geek Speak BarCamp.
One of the many great speakers at Geek Speak Live! (see James Rabey's post for the lineup) is Russ Daniels, HP CTO for Cloud Services Strategy. Russ Daniels was previously the CTO for HP Software, before moving into this new role last year.
In 2006, Infoworld named Russ Daniels a part of its Infoworld CTO 25.
"Historically, the enterprise management category was viewed as network and systems monitoring, and not much else," Daniels says. But today, he argues, it should be viewed as a way to manage IT assets and services – and measure their effectiveness in furthering an organization's business goals.
Daniels also co-leads the company's Adaptive Enterprise initiative, which combines virtualization with various datacenter automation technologies to form a malleable foundation for service-oriented IT. The automation efforts are focused, he says, on activities that, when done manually, tend to inject errors into systems. The ultimate objective is for enterprises to spend less on operations and more on innovation.
Although his background is in software development (including work on Web services standards), and he embraces the intricacies of datacenter management, Daniels is keenly aware that technology must always prove its value: "We have to be able to understand the performance of computing systems in business metrics, not IT metrics."
According to his bio, "Daniels speaks widely at conferences and works closely with key HP partners and its largest and most demanding enterprise customers. Daniels has more than 25 years of industry experience specializing in software architecture, enterprise management, and software development methodologies. Prior to joining HP, he spent 15 years at Apple Computer. He has a bachelor's degree from Ohio University."
Daniels is a highly sought after speaker at technology conferences. Russ Daniels participated in a "fireside chat" at Mobile 2.0 in San Francisco last year. You can read the transcript here. He also participated in MIT's CIO Symposium in 2006 in a discussion of Software as a service. You can listen to a podcast of this discussion here
If you have not yet registered for Citrix Synergy, you can click here to to complete your registration. I look forward to seeing you at Synergy and Geek Speak Live!.
It is time to start taking votes for the best XenDesktop Video Tip. The creators of the top three video tips will receive prizes including an Apple iPod Touch 16 G, an Apple iPod Touch 8 GB, and a Apple iPod Nano.
Here are the XenDesktop Video Tips -
XenDesktop User Experience Comparison
VDI Made as Easy as Pie
XenDesktop User Personalization with AppSense
20 Desktops Delivered in 2 Minutes
XenDesktop with SC VMM and Hyper V
XenDesktop from Germany
Voting Now Closed
Voting will remain open until next Friday, May 16th.
The March of Dimes Walk for Babies is in full swing. The Citrix office in Silicon Valley and the Citrix Online team have both recently created teams to help the March of Dimes Walk for Babies.
Wes Wasson, our SVP of Marketing, recently spoke at the March of Dimes March for Babies in the Bay Area in Northern California.
This video from the March of Dimes explains why the March for Babies is so important.
I know from personal experience the importance of research into birth defects, premature birth and infant mortality. My daughter was born 7 weeks premature after many complications, and weighed about four pounds at birth. She was just about the size of my hand.
Thankfully, our sweet little girl is a very healthy and happy three year old today. Much of the thanks goes to the research supported by the March of Dimes and the March for Babies.
Find a March for Babies in your area.
We now have fourteen of the twenty sessions at the Geek Speak BarCamp filled (read background on Geek Speak BarCamp here, here and here).
I have put together a tentative schedule of the sessions we have to date. The sessions, title, and schedule could still change, but the overall schedule is coming together.
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We are still working to fill the final six slots. Please submit your session topic now. You can use the comments in this thread, or you can email me at citrixblogger @citrix.com . You can also IM questions to citrixblogger on MSN, Yahoo and Google Talk.
If you have not yet registered for Synergy, you can click here to to complete your registration. I look forward to seeing you at Synergy and the Geek Speak BarCamp.
I have not checked UTipU.com in a while for XenDesktop Tips. A couple of the recent tips from YouTube have been cross posted to UTipU.com in higher resolution versions.
XenDesktop with SC VMM and Hyper V
XenDesktop personalization with AppSense
See this live and in person in the XenDesktop technical sessions and live demos at Citrix Synergy. You can click here to register for Citrix Synergy.
I was just sent this XenDesktop video posted on YouTube from Germany. Much of the text on the video in in German (though Mark Templeton's comments are in English).
See this live and in person in the XenDesktop technical sessions and live demos at Citrix Synergy. You can click here to register for Citrix Synergy.
Klaus Oestermann,VP of the Application Networking Group at Citrix, did an short interview with Aving.net at INTEROP Las Vegas about the new Citrix NetScaler MPX.
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Check out the NetScaler MPX live demos at Citrix Synergy.
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