@Carnival-Boy said:

I hoped this would be an interesting thread on Google Apps, but it turns out to be another Spiceworks slag-fest

For me, there's an open source feel about Google Apps, with all the third-party scripts available as well as a pretty powerful API that let's you write your own applications. I've spent some time on this trying to get our ERP application to update jobs on Google Maps Coordinate, with limited success. There's a good site here https://developers.google.com/oauthplayground/ where you can see what API features are available with all of Google's products. I find it all a bit of a mess and the documentation is pretty limited. There's an assumption that you have a high degree of competency already when developing Google apps, which I don't have as I'm not a web developer and have no prior experience of OAuth. I think I'm in far too deep trying to develop Google Maps Coordinate, but if you're a professional developer I imagine Google app development is a lot of fun.

Does O365 have similar?

Office 365 uses ADFS, which has an SDK available for it, if you want applications with true SSO. Otherwise, the clients are your typical Outlook, Lync, Excel, etc, so most of the addons would be targeted towards them. SharePoint Designer's available for SharePoint. Since Office 365 includes PowerShell, it can be used as a tie-in for third-party administrative solutions.

@Carnival-Boy said:

I really hate plans. Especially Microsoft ones. Why can't everything just be à la carte? It's the one area where I really prefer Google.

Everything is available a la carte with Microsoft. If you wanted to pick up Exchange, SharePoint, and Office, but not Lync, you can. Much like a combo meal at a fast food place, it'll cost you more individually, but it's completely doable.

@Carnival-Boy said:

@scottalanmiller said:

@Carnival-Boy they are too wide for that. One on top of the other might be better. Too much head movement is bad.

Electronically controlled swivel chair linked to mouse movements FTW

That sounds a bit like the Last Starfighter. Interesting.

@Joyfano said:

Microsoft made several desktop-friendly tweaks to Windows 8.1 Update 1 and the much-anticipated return of the Start menu was supposedly slated for Update 2 later this year. According to a ZDNet report, however, the company has decided to hold off on this feature until sometime in 2015.

http://www.techspot.com/news/56956-microsofts-desktop-start-menu-wont-appear-until-next-major-windows-release-in-2015.html

Well, crap! That update could have made Windows 8.1 completely viable for VDI deployments. The current start screen has way too much motion to be smooth enough for a desktop replacement at present.

I'll stick with GTD, thanks.

@scottalanmiller said:

Has anyone worked with Windows on Azure? (The IaaS service?) I built a server and everything was working fine. It joined the domain and was accessible. After a reboot, RDP and PowerShell Remoting (and PsExec) are all blocked. I get the NLA (Network Level Authentication) error and nothing works.

Now I let it sit for a while and access was available again. Very odd. Just wondering if anyone has run into this and, if so, what would you do to access the instance since there is no console access!! Obviously disabling NLA is one option, now that things work, but we would obviously prefer the extra security. But we need something to ensure that we can get access should something go wrong as well.

Thoughts? Experiences?

What changed between joining it to the domain and the second reboot? Are there any firewall-specific group policies in place (or lack thereof?) Did any of the other instances on your virtual network experience the same issue?

@technobabble said:

Waiting to hear from Chris at Microsoft. Since O365 PP is a enterprise offering, according to the website it looks just like O365 small business premium.

Office ProPlus isn't the same as 365 Small Business. Small business includes Exchange, Lync, and SharePoint.

@scottalanmiller said:

@alexntg said:

@scottalanmiller said:

@alexntg we are talking about running one XP desktop here. Keep some perspective.

It's currently a VM running in an otherwise fine server architecture. You're suggesting adding another piece of hardware and a different virtualization platform for a minor video issue.

And a major licensing issue.

All it takes is a single SA subscription or VDA license to fix. That's not major. The issue would still exist on VirtualBox.

@technobabble said:

@alexntg Correct but those don't come with software.

O365PP looks really close to O365 Small business premium (which is not on the list).

Small business is a different tenant type, not part of the enterprise plans.

@RAM. said:

@alexntg said:

Count me in. I'm only a short train ride away.

RAM, just take the train; it's easier.

Oh god no dude, train is mondo expensive. I'll take the megabus thank you very much.

There you go. Megabus isn't bad, and is way cheaper than driving, once you factor in gas, tolls, and parking. I've taken that to NYC a few times.

@technobabble said:

So weird...that is my only downgrade available. http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/business/office-365-proplus-business-software-FX103213513.aspx

My choices when I click on purchase services (aside from all the other add-on offers:
O365 E3 Trial $20/mth
O365 E4 $22/mth
O365 ProPlus $12/mth

There should be E1 and Exchange Online somewhere in that list as well.

@scottalanmiller said:

What use case are you seeing for client server apps? I haven't seen a legitimately designed one if those since the 90s.

Some of the things that come to mind in regards to client-server:
Rich email clients - While a basic web-based email client's sufficient for some, when it comes to integrating and automating between email and other sources, such as CRM, the rich client's where it's at.

Production data acquisition - Most manufacturing equipment runs on PLCs, but those report into Windows servers or client computers that act as servers. Propietary equipment manufacturers, especially custom ones, often don't have the resources to write their software for multiple platforms, and will go with the most requested platform, traditionally Windows client with central Windows software (often MSSQL). If the majority of customers start requesting a different architecture, then they may reconsider. This ranges from $500k+ manufacturing equipment down to simple timeclock interfaces.

Niche software - There's lots of unique use cases, such as ACD software for Lync server. In addition to the ACD server, each user has a client installed on their computer that relays data to other applications for automation purposes, such as MS Dynamics CRM. Most ERP systems favor one particular platform over another, and also have locally installed clients. Most vertical-specific document management systems are client-server.

Speaking of Lync, VOIP clients are a great example of client-server. While there are some web applications that get the job done, the most feature-rich, high quality clients are, well, clients. The same goes for instant messaging clients.

@scottalanmiller said:

Like if it is Excel vs SalesForce, it would be rare for SF not to be worth it.

But if it is vTiger vs SF, much harder to justify.

And with salespeople having to generate reports, that lowers the value of a more closed system.

If a company already has vTiger as a CRM, it'd be an issue of platform migration, which wouldn't be worthwhile unless there was certain required functionality worth the effort of the migration. That's a lot different from someone not having a CRM already.

@scottalanmiller said:

@alexntg we are talking about running one XP desktop here. Keep some perspective.

It's currently a VM running in an otherwise fine server architecture. You're suggesting adding another piece of hardware and a different virtualization platform for a minor video issue.

@scottalanmiller said:

@alexntg said:

@JaredBusch said:

@scottalanmiller said:

@pol.darreljade Why would it be so common if money isn't in abundance? It is a relatively rare development platofrm in the US and in Europe because of the very hogh cost associated with using it - it is expensive to license, expensive to support and the mainline development tools for it are quite costly. For desktops, sure. But for servers running applications, it is definitely a niche choice for companies looking to spend a lot of money or for shops looking to spend money on technology and save money on developers since Windows development is generally cheaper as it is in less demand.

This is completely out of touch. Every single small business I deal with that has not migrated out to hosted solutions use software packages built on and designed to run on windows. Yes new stuff should not be designed that way, but the embedded market has it and has had it for years and will not just change for no reason.
Hell, we just decommissioned a System 36 (not Windows, I know but extremely long time in service is the point).

^This! For those developing for a web platform, the end-user doesn't see the backend platform, so the OS doesn't matter. For desktop OSes, Windows still has the market by a staggering majority. http://www.netmarketshare.com/operating-system-market-share.aspx?qprid=10&qpcustomd=0 Why would a company spend time and money developing for a platform that has less than 2 percent of the marketshare?

Linux has the largest server and end user market share. But the web has effectively 100% penetration.

Why would anyone choose to pigeon hole when cross compatible options are ao plentiful and powerful like HTML5 and Python.

You're argument seems to be to limit deployment options for their own sake. What business goal do you perceive that you are meeting by overspending and under delivering?

Are we even talking about the same thing? In my last post, I split out web applications from local applications. Linux in most cases makes sense for a web platform. For installable and many traditional client-server applications, Windows platforms have a solid majority. Despite what you may feel, Linux does not have the largest end-user market share. The vast majority of business endpoints are still Windows. It's one thing to look to the future, but it's another to ignore the present.

@scottalanmiller said:

@technobabble said:

@alexntg I see your point, the numbers speak for themselves. Although it is widely known that smaller SOHO's don't usually have a IT budgets.

How many companies do you know where the salespeople both bring in enough extra to cover the difference - remember that it has to be the average extra against every user who needs access to the data. In an SMB often two people need data access for every salesperson. In a big shop with lots of salespeople it makes perfect sense. But pricing in the SMB often does not.

It's very situational. In many cases, there's data floating in salespeople's mailboxes and one-off spreadsheets they manually compile and then send out the spreadsheets via email. A barebones CRM install would only need coverage for those users. The users could still generate their reports and send them off. Everything else is a la carte. If you wanted to go the next step and offload some of the administrative work to others, you'd need licenses to cover them. In those cases, however, the people doing the administrative work typically were feeding data to the salespeople and processing what they receive, so it would take a work study to see if the time saved on both sides by working directly with the data paid for the CRM's administrative users. If done properly, it should at least be a wash. At some point, there's a data export/import process going on (automated or otherwise). There are pure overhead, completely optional users, such as non-sales management. Some would prefer to just look at the reports they receive, and others like to play with data. That would impact the number of licenses.

For the environment of 10 salespeople, only 4 additional licenses were needed, for the 3 Customer Service/Order Entry folks and the Ops Manager. For the Customer Service people, it was a huge time saver. Less time was spent chasing down the salespeople for info, and more time was able to spent putting the data to work to get results. They were on the cusp of adding a fourth Customer Service person, but didn't need to because of the time savings CRM provided. That alone paid for the system.

@scottalanmiller said:

@alexntg said:

@scottalanmiller said:

@alexntg said:

@scottalanmiller said:

@alexntg said:

@scottalanmiller said:

Put it on VirtualBox and you'll get RDP back.

The hypervisor isn't preventing RDP.

Didn't imply that it was. But it isn't providing it either. VirtualBox provides RDP directly from the hypervisors so no OS level lock out will do anything. Console redirect to RDP!!

Ok. How does one do that without nesting VMs?

Just select the RDP option instead of the VNC option when downloading VirtualBox. Remote console redirection is native to VirtualBox and Xen. There is nothing special to know.

Let me rephrase; you're suggesting running VirtualBox inside of ESXI?

No. Why would want to do that?

You're making something incredibly simple into something really complicated.

Just install CentOS. Toss on VBox with RDP. Done. VBox handles everything. No weird nesting. No reading in something odd. Just a normal VBox install.

That's insane. No one should be running their production environment on VirtualBox. Replacing ESXi with that would result in a drop in performance, and it's not a Veeam-supported hypervisor.

Count me in. I'm only a short train ride away.

RAM, just take the train; it's easier.

@scottalanmiller said:

@alexntg said:

@scottalanmiller said:

@alexntg said:

@scottalanmiller said:

Put it on VirtualBox and you'll get RDP back.

The hypervisor isn't preventing RDP.

Didn't imply that it was. But it isn't providing it either. VirtualBox provides RDP directly from the hypervisors so no OS level lock out will do anything. Console redirect to RDP!!

Ok. How does one do that without nesting VMs?

Just select the RDP option instead of the VNC option when downloading VirtualBox. Remote console redirection is native to VirtualBox and Xen. There is nothing special to know.

Let me rephrase; you're suggesting running VirtualBox inside of ESXI?

@technobabble said:

@alexntg Oh, so if I drop down from E3 to ProPlus, I loose the online stuff?

If you drop a user from E3 to ProPlus without EOP1 or E1, that user would only have access to the Office ProPlus install, no other services.