*This post originally appeared on the AppSense blog prior to the rebrand in January 2017, when AppSense, LANDESK, Shavlik, Wavelink, and HEAT Software merged under the new name Ivanti.

For the past twenty years, I’ve worked in Silicon Valley companies product managing databases, security systems and other enterprise software. I can safely say that user experience is increasingly becoming the critical success factor to any user-facing technology. And that doesn’t start and end with a set of fancy screens; “experience” is about the journey that the technology takes the user through.

Being involved with dozens of virtualization projects on any given day, the AppSense team is obsessed with user experience. End user productivity (read “user acceptance”) is directly correlated to the user feeling comfortable with their workspace down to the smallest items like icons, the recently accessed file list and that ever pervasive desktop background. Although, great UEM goes much further than that.

Here is what The City of Round Rock, Texas thinks of user experience as it applies to desktop transformation. Their IT team was passionately committed to ensuring a seamless transition to employees during its migration from physical to VMware View-

“A lot of people like to have their kids’ pictures, a cat or something else personal as their desktop wallpaper,” explains Brooks Bennett, CTO of City of Round Rock. “We didn’t want to take that away from people as we moved them from the physical to the virtual. We call it the ‘kitty cat wallpaper’ problem.”

Users can be as finicky as felines so calling it “kitty-cat wallpaper problem” is apropos.

We at AppSense are also passionate about preserving the user’s environment. We do this in a pretty clever way by separating the user’s policy, privilege and data from the underlying system so that their environment looks and feels the same no matter how the desktop is delivered underneath.

In the year I've been here, AppSense’s commitment to customers has grown to something even more remarkable. And we’re delighted to receive such kudos-

“AppSense has been an excellent business partner,” concludes Bennett. “Any organization looking to roll out virtual desktop infrastructure needs to be looking at AppSense because it really helps take those environments to the next level and above all ensures user remain productive wherever they are working.”

User-focused IT (and cat wallpaper lovers) everywhere rejoice. AppSense has your back!

kittycat