1. When people ask you what does WinINSTALL do, what do you tell them?

WinINSTALL has been one of the leading software distribution products for over a decade. Not only is WinINSTALL used for easy MSI package creation and editing but it is a very flexible complete desktop management product that provides complete integration with any network directory such as Active Directory, NT Groups, and NDS and Bindery groups from Netware. WinINSTALL also provides the most flexible installation capability of any software distribution product. There are eight different methods of delivering applications to the desktop that are a mix of push and pull methods. WinINSTALL also provides results reporting to help understand if application packages are installed successfully and if they fail report why they failed.

Our understanding of MSI is extensive. We were asked by Microsoft to build the very first MSI packaging tool. We worked for two years with Microsoft as they built MSI and the Windows Installer. That work led to a light edition MSI packager from WinINSTALL known as WinINSTALL LE. It still ships on the Windows 2000 Advanced Server CD today. WinINSTALL LE is the most widely distributed and used MSI packager in the world and is available for free. With overwhelming response we recently released the second generation of LE known as WinINSTALL LE 2003. This again is offered as a free MSI light edition MSI packager and can be downloaded from the OnDemand Software website at www.ondemandsoftware.com/FREELE2003.

WinINSTALL is a very mature product that has a feature set built by administrators for administrators. Nearly every part of WinINSTALL has come from requests of the products millions of customers from all parts of the world. We continue to focus very intently on managing the lifecycle of the desktop. We firmly believe that the problem is much more than MSI packaging. Packaging is an important component in the solution but only one component. Administrators are forced out of the box every day. They need flexibility and reliability in tools that they use. WinINSTALL has always been very reliable and is known for the tremendous flexibility. Software distribution and managing the availability of desktops has to include packaging, targeting of machines and users, multiple methods of installing software, results reporting as well as the ability to install operating systems, service packs, applications and virtually any change that needs to be made to a desktop. The problem that really should be thought about is how to eliminate the need to visit the PC to resolve software problems. That is what WinINSTALL is focused on solving.

2. Can you provide a quick history of WinINSTALL for us?

Sure. WinINSTALL was developed out of the need to solve a problem. Mel Raff, WinINSTALL author was an administrator at a government agency. He and his staff had no way to install software on all the desktops. Understanding the problem Mel built WinINSTALL. It became commercially available in 1991.

In 1994 Mel came together with a team that built OnDemand Software, Inc. In 1995 WinINSTALL became the very first product to be integrated with Microsoft SMS 1.0.

In 1996 OnDemand Software was acquired by Seagate Software and was generally known as one of the pioneers and leaders in the software distribution market.

In 1999 the largest part of Seagate Software was acquired by Veritas. Most of the original OnDemand Software staff filled management positions at both Seagate and Veritas.

In 2002 we had the opportunity to spin WinINSTALL out of Veritas and again formed OnDemand Software bringing the entire development team and technical support team along with some of the sales staff. This allows us to concentrate on supporting our large customer base and driving WinINSTALL forward as a market leader in managing the availability of desktops.

WinINSTALL has won over 17 industry awards including three consecutive Win2K Target awards in 2000, 2001 and 2002.

3. What would you say is WinINSTALL's strongest feature?

I'm not sure it would just be a feature. I think it is clearly the flexibility and ease of use that stands out from what our customers tell us. We constantly hear things such as, "We never knew that WinINSTALL could do so much and do it so effortlessly." I think another strength of WinINSTALL is reliability. It just works. After over a decade of development WinINSTALL is very feature rich in its total solution. And we are far from finished. There are many exciting things coming over the next two releases that we believe may change the way administrators manage desktops. We believe we can provide the power and functionality that a couple of enterprise products on the market provide today without the requirement of dedicated hardware platforms for the tool and without the high price tag of licensing and implementation. It shouldn't be about managing the tool but about managing the desktop.

4. What do you believe to be the most underrated or misunderstood feature?

Many people have forgotten about all of the flexibility and power of the eight different installers that WinINSTALL provides. With the introduction of MSI and the Windows Installer there has been much hype around MSI packaging. What administrators are beginning to see though is that Group Policy is a very rigid set of rules about how applications are installed on the desktop and really wasn't built with the administrator in mind. We believe that Group Policy should be leveraged but that a product needs to give the administrator the ability to get out of the box when they need to. This is WinINSTALL's real strength. It can do it all, MSI packaging, NAI packaging (WinINSTALL's native file format), integration with active directory and all other directory structures, eight different installation methods, results reporting, replication and a lot more coming very soon.

5. What do you believe makes WinINSTALL stand out when compared to other products?

That depends on what products you are comparing. There are few products that really are apples to apples comparisons. There are products that provide packaging and there are those that provide delivery but few that really have an end to end solution that WinINSTALL has. I think comparisons of products should look more at what they do and how they do it rather than list a set of features that are checked off. Any company can match feature to feature from one release to another. We are concentrating on being the best at each flex point in our product. We really understand the problem that administrators face each day in managing desktops. We can install operating systems, service packs, applications, and registry changes, virtually any change that needs to be made to the desktop can be accomplished with WinINSTALL and at a low entry price. It is scalable from a network with 25 desktops to networks with over 100,000 desktops. That is proven in our customer base.

6. What do you see in the future for WinINSTALL?

We have two releases that are being developed right now. These two releases really bring to market our vision of eliminating the need to visit the desktop to resolve software problems. This is what I would call desktop availability. We've talked about server availability for years. Why not demand the same total availability of the desktop. Cutting costs in the IT shop isn't a one time achievement. It is ongoing. Every time someone from the IT staff is dispatched to visit the desktop there are costs not only with that IT person but also the lost productivity of the user of the desktop. If we can eliminate as much of those costs as possible then we truly are providing value on a daily basis.

Version 8 of WinINSTALL will be released this summer which will provide hardware and software inventory, multicast replication, a common tasks start page and several enhancements to our packaging capability such as conflict assessment, MSI validation and correction and baselining. The software inventory will be very interesting. We essentially are introducing the ability to build a bill of materials for each PC on the network. Now you will know what a known working state of a machine is and if there are problems with that machine you will know what operating system, service pack, which applications and versions are on the desktop all the way down to which files and versions of files are used by those applications. If anything happens to the PC from a software perspective then the administrator will know exactly what to put back on the PC based on that PCs bill of materials. This provides a real day to day use of asset management inventory rather than reports run occasionally to see what machines are out there and what is running on them. You will also see WinINSTALL work into the PC migration market this year. More to come on that very soon.

Version 9 will introduce proactive management of the desktop. WinINSTALL will give the administrator the ability to know about changes on the desktop that may cause potential problems before the call comes in to the help desk. This truly realizes our vision of eliminating the need to visit the desktop to solve software problems. We are very close to bringing this whole vision to market and we are very excited about it.

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