Windows 10: Move Over, Neo
[inlinequote]“We can load anything… equipment…weapons…training simulations…anything we need.”[/inlinequote]
— Morpheus, The Matrix
Unless you’re still at school there’s a good chance you’ll recall 1999. That was the year of worry about the Millennium Bug, which luckily turned out to be nowhere near as grim as predicted.
It was also the year The Matrix was released. You remember that movie, right? Our hero Neo discovers he’s not really living in 1999 at all. It’s all virtual: he’s really in suspended animation in the 21st century, and he and everyone else is being fed an alternate reality – the Matrix – while they’re used as a power source by intelligent machines. But there’s a group of rebels – they’re the good guys – and they free him so he can help them fight back.
It’s a film that looks into a fictional future, and it’s stunning. In other ways, though, life has already caught up with and overtaken what it imagined. For instance, remember the Operators? These were the rebels’ back-room guys, and Neo, Trinity and everyone else out in the field could ask them to supply whatever information, weapons or materials they needed.
In our own tech terms this was essentially an on-demand service. But when you’re doing battle – whether in a science fiction future or in a real-world competitive business market – the last thing you want to do is duck out of the fight until someone can send you more ammunition.
If you’re competing at enterprise level, you don’t need that kind of distraction. What you do need is for everything to be on hand and up to date without you even having to think about it. That’s exactly what Windows 10 provides with Windows as a Service. It doesn’t wait for you to ask: it’s cloud-based, and deploys as a service from the centre.
For a quick summary of everything Windows 10 can do for you, watch this short animation.
As a Service – at your service
Windows as a Service enables enterprises to manage deployment, maintain security, distinguish between mission-critical environments and end-user devices and control how and when updates are delivered across the board. Because it’s in the cloud it puts you at the centre of things. In this scenario, you’re the Operator. The difference is that your people in the field don’t need to put in requests: instead, you set up processes to send things to them automatically as soon as they’re available.
It means you can run your IT portfolio more efficiently and cost-effectively, managing everything from a single console, including Mobile Data Management solutions. It means you can respond more rapidly and comprehensively to actual or potential new security threats. And it means you can deploy updates and patches in a flexible, staged and sensible manner rather than in a one-off, one-size-fits-all fashion.
Windows as a Service covers the practicalities of managing apps and their licenses. With Windows 10 you get universal apps in the Business Store, and you can also create your own personal catalogue. Deployment is simplified too: instead of time-consuming wipe-and-reload deployment, in-place upgrades are provided, preserving data and settings as well as updating apps and drivers.
Windows 10 also comprehensively addresses app currency and hence security. Because it’s delivered as a service, innovations and new technologies arrive regularly and your people in the field always up to date with the latest technology.
Flexibility in implementing these updates is particularly useful. Your organization can choose to update software at one of three speeds, depending on context and circumstances:
- Current Branch, which delivers immediate feature updates;
- Current Branch for Business, which allows enterprises to defer updates until their quality and app compatibility have been assessed in the consumer market; and
- Long-term Service Branch, for security / patches only
Focus on what matters
It’s all so much easier than any piecemeal approach or on-demand alternative. The rebels – that’s your end-users in the field – don’t have to wait for the latest upgrade or security fix. And the Operators – that’s you and your team in the centre – don’t need to spend so much time on deployment and device management.
Windows 10 makes all this possible. It means everyone in your enterprise can focus instead on innovating and on driving value for your business. You’ll all be equipped to win beyond anything Neo could imagine.
Windows 10. It’s better than winning in The Matrix. And it’s in the real world.
Windows 10 helps our customers focus less on deployment and device management and more on innovation and driving value for their business.
