SoftWatch Launches New Service to Help Corporations Plan and Transform Their End-User Computing Environment

TEL AVIV, ISRAEL--(Marketwired - Jul 16, 2014) - The recent announcement by Microsoft regarding its discontinuing Windows XP support now forces 25-percent of the world's corporations still on XP as their standard desktop OS to make a substantial investment in their migration to a new OS. However, the shift to the cloud presents new options to CIOs when optimizing their end-user computing environment. They now can take advantage of cloud-based applications (Google Apps, Salesforce, etc.) as well as communications and infrastructure services (e.g. Videoconferencing, storage); in addition, desktop virtualization (VDI), the availability of tablets and browser based OS (such as Chrome OS) and the BYOD phenomenon create new opportunities to substantially reduce HW costs.

Following the announcement of its Softwatch Assessment Service allowing enterprises to migrate from MS Office to Google Apps based on MS Office real usage analysis, SoftWatch announces today a new service as part of its OptimizeIT Premium Suite to support CIOs in their decision making process as they manage their transformation initiatives.

A SaaS-based solution, the new service identifies and segments users to give more thorough usage information to decision makers. This segmentation includes:

• Power users who carry out highly specialized tasks (such as CAD/CAM, retouch imaging, heavy statistical analysis etc.)
• Users who use home grown and/or customized enterprise applications (ERP, CRM etc.)
• Users who normally use standard office applications (such as MS Office).
• Identification of Heavy and Light users within each group, according to the extent they use the application

Once CIOs consider real usage of software applications and patterns within the enterprise, they will have many options for optimizing their end-user computing environment. The SoftWatch solution can guide IT decision makers to reduce operational costs by building an end-user computing environment that fits the user profile, utilizing various combinations of hardware (powerful WS, standard WS, virtualization and low cost tablets) and software (on premise, cloud based).

The outcome of the OptimizeIT analysis will be a flexible and cost-effective hybrid cloud architecture accommodating different needs of different users at optimal cost. While power users may continue to use advanced applications using powerful workstations, others may be better off using relatively low-cost tablets and cloud-based applications.

"We continue to extend our services to enable IT decision makers to make informed decisions and optimize their end-user computing environment based on application usage analysis," said Uri Arad, Co-CEO, SoftWatch. "We strongly believe that the default decision to migrate to the next Microsoft OS and the "one size fits all" approach are no longer serving the interests of enterprises. The availability of application usage information allows enterprises to obtain a thorough analysis of their readiness to embrace cloud based services, manage the transition and enjoy tremendous economic and technological benefits."

SoftWatch is already engaged in talks with large IT system integrators who can leverage on its services to offer customers a range of optimization and migration initiatives. "The new service is already deployed by several customers. We are very encouraged seeing one of our customers taking advantage of the service to deploy broad set of new services including Google Apps, Chromebooks and virtual desktop to its 3000 employees" said Moshe Kozlovski, Co-CEO of SoftWatch. "This is in line with our vision of usage analytics tools playing a major role in making strategic decisions regarding IT transformation initiatives".

About SoftWatch

SoftWatch is a leader in Application Usage analytics. With its SaaS solution, it enables enterprises to effectively manage the transition of business applications to the cloud, optimize their hybrid cloud environment and reduce software spending. The Israel-based company has patents pending for its software usage and user segmentation solutions. For more information, visit www.softwatch.com.