Microsoft accepting participation requests in the beta program

Oct 14, 2009 08:27 GMT  ·  By

Microsoft is accepting participation requests in the testing program for the second beta build of System Center Online Desktop Manager. The registration process was kicked off in September 2009 and continues to be live even at this point in time. The upcoming development milestone of System Center Online Desktop Manager, planned for fall 2009, will be a private Beta, just as the first build offered to testers. However, Microsoft is expanding the testing program to include a few hundred participants. IT professionals from companies interested in managing desktops in their IT environment with an online service can now fill out the SCODM Beta 2 Nomination Survey on Microsoft Connect and get in on the private beta.

“If you are chosen, here’s what they expect from you: Active involvement in discussion groups, good feedback and bug reporting. Ability to deploy to a number of test PCs (preferably 5 or more). Test on a variety of browsers, Windows operating systems, and PC architectures. Ability to run through all the documented core scenarios and provide feedback,” noted Cecilia Cole, WSUS PM.

Administrators of IT environments willing to get a taste of System Center Online Desktop Manager Beta 2 should hurry up and sign up. Microsoft will only send Beta program participation invitations until the end of October. The company underlined that the Beta 2 of SCODM was only opened to IR pros from companies in the United States. At this point in time, the software giant pointed out that the next development milestone of the product, System Center Online Desktop Manager Beta 3, would be offered in the spring of 2010.

Cole added that Beta 2 “includes the following:

•Updates Management: Manage the Microsoft updates from a web-based console. Review available updates, choose updates and deploy to selected computers or groups of computers. Imagine WSUS from the cloud. •Policy Settings: Provides the ability to configure operational settings of the Windows Update and Anti-Malware agents installed on the client computers. •Anti-malware : Review anti-malware, anti-virus status and remedial actions from the SCODM console. Ensure managed computers have up-to-date signatures. •Assets Inventory: Collect detailed hardware and software inventory on managed computers. View this information in reports. Use the License reconciliation feature to load your Microsoft volume license agreement information and compare installed application quantities with licensed quantities. •Alerts : Helps you quickly and easily find problems (or potential) on your computers. You can also get help on how to solve the problem or how to start troubleshooting.”