I just had a meeting with Wise and Alteris about a new product that is currently in RC testing and will be released to the public in a couple of weeks. It’s called SVS.

By placing applications and data into managed units called Virtual Software Packages, Software Virtualization Solution allows you to instantly activate, deactivate or reset applications and to completely avoid conflicts between applications, without altering the base Windows installation.

Click here for the SVS web page.

Click here for the SVS User group.

I have been playing with this for several weeks now and it is an impressive new way to deploy and manage software on the desktop. I think that SVS represents a paradigm shift in how you may manage client software deployments.

It will retail for around thirty bucks a seat or so and best of all will be released as "Free for personal use" so you can load it up on your own machine and try it out.

Check out this review.

They envisioned a software deployment model that worked much like a light switch: Turn it on and the application is there; turn it off and it disappears without a trace.

... No messy installation scripts that break under tightened security; no troublesome “artifacts” in the Windows Registry; no leftover files lurking in obscure folders on the local hard disk, waiting to trip up the next deployment. In the software deployment world according to Altiris, applications would materialize and/or dematerialize with the flick of a switch.

Impossible, you say? I certainly thought so. But then I installed the company’s SVS (Software Virtualization Solution) on a few PCs, and found that I was wrong -- virtual configuration management was possible, and Altiris does a bang-up job of streamlining the process

For Desktop applications, a product definitely worth looking at. Especially since you can start using it for yourself at no cost whatsoever. You owe it to yourself to give it a look!