DesktopStandard's PolicyMaker Named Winner in Multiple 2005 Readers' Choice Award by Windows IT Pro

DesktopStandard's PolicyMaker Named Winner in Multiple 2005 Readers' Choice Award by Windows IT Pro

PORTSMOUTH, N.H., Sept. 1 /PRNewswire/ -- DesktopStandard Corporation, the leading developer of Group Policy-based enterprise desktop management products, announced today that four of the company's products won a total of six prestigious 2005 Windows IT Pro Readers' Choice Awards. DesktopStandard's PolicyMaker(TM) was named the Most Innovative Product, one of only five Best Overall categories, while the free PolicyMaker Registry Extension won the Registry Management Tool category. These solutions were recognized from more than 750 Windows IT product and service nominations.

In addition to the top finishes, PolicyMaker received second place for Change and Configuration Management Tool and third place for Active Directory Management Tool -- behind Microsoft winners Systems Management Server (SMS) and Group Policy Management Console (GPMC) respectively. PolicyMaker Software Update won third place in the Patch Management Tool category, behind Microsoft's Windows Server Update Services (WSUS) product and SMS. DesktopStandard's ProfileMaker(R) product took second place in Messaging & Collaboration/Exchange Migration.

Winners were selected based on feedback from more than 1,700 members of Windows IT Pro's subscriber base who voted in 12 broad technology categories. Kim Paulsen, group publisher of the Penton Media's Windows IT Pro Group, announced the winners of the fourth-annual contest today.

"The Windows IT Pro Readers' Choice Awards are highly coveted in the IT industry because our readers, who are the buyers and users of these products, are the ones who choose the winners," said Paulsen. "These awards are the ultimate acclamation an IT company can earn from its peers in the IT community."

DesktopStandard's PolicyMaker was the first product to extend the functionality of Group Policy to enable rapid configuration of Windows desktops across an enterprise for standardization, security and regulatory compliance purposes. By incorporating management tasks into the Windows Group Policy system, the technology allows for standardization on a single methodology. This significantly reduces acquisition cost, training time and management infrastructure while increasing reliability and maintainability over scripting and utilities. This standards-based, policy-centric approach allows each individual configuration setting to be documented and managed, an important benefit in this time of increasing focus on standards compliance and security.

PolicyMaker Registry Extension is a free extension to Group Policy that is designed to help administrators make custom changes as they might require. Instead of editing archaic template files, users can simply launch the Registry Wizard and select one or more existing settings from the local computer, or another computer on the network.

PolicyMaker Software Update is a Group Policy extension that allows organizations to distribute Microsoft, third-party, and custom-defined patches to computers without the need to deploy servers or additional infrastructure. The system leverages published Microsoft SUS and WSUS patch metadata and patches, to ensure that the end-result of deployment is exactly the same as with Microsoft products, and provides many advanced features including bandwidth throttling, rollback, integration of third party reference information, as well as the best of Group Policy, including granular targeting, inheritance and delegation. The product is certified as Common Vulnerability and Exposures (CVE) compliant. DesktopStandard recently announced the beta testing of the second version (code-named Dragnet), which includes centralized reporting based on Microsoft's SQL reporting services.

"Recognition by the technically savvy readers of Windows IT Pro for our products is an indication that we are delivering industry-leading solutions and enabling business innovation," said DesktopStandard CEO John Moyer. "To be honored in such significant categories by the readers of Windows IT Pro underscores our influence in Group Policy market, specifically in the realm of enterprise desktop security, and validates the quality that customers see in our products."

PolicyMaker includes a long list of security and configuration management extensions to Microsoft's extensible Group Policy framework, including a robust patch management extension, extensions for managing local computer security group membership, administrator passwords, and Windows services, and most recently an extension that allows native permissions to be assigned to applications and tasks, allowing organizations to abide by the fundamental security principle of granting end-users the least amount of privilege required to do their jobs.

About DesktopStandard

DesktopStandard Corporation is the leading developer of Group Policy-based desktop management products. The company has more than 3,000 customers, more than 3 million desktops under management and a worldwide network of integrators and resellers. DesktopStandard is a Microsoft Gold Certified ISV. PolicyMaker Standard Edition, the first product based on Group Policy Extension, was released in late 2003, followed by the release of PolicyMaker Software Update in 2004 and PolicyMaker Application Security in early 2005. For more information, visit http://www.desktopstandard.com/ .

About the Windows IT Pro Group

The Windows IT Pro Group, the largest independent Windows IT community in the world, includes content from the flagship print publication Windows IT Pro, three monthly paid subscription print newsletters, 12 direct-request email newsletters and a web site resource for more than two million IT professionals each month. First published in 1995, Windows IT Pro is the editorial leader in its field and has a paid subscription base of 105,000 readers. Windows IT Pro was named to BtoB Magazine's 2005 Media Power 50 list, winning recognition for its Windows IT Pro UPDATE email newsletter. The magazine is published in 13 languages and has an international reach in 160 countries.

The franchise also includes SQL Server Magazine, with 30,000 paid subscribers, more than 210,000 web site visitors monthly and two email newsletters sent to more than 130,000 opt-in subscribers. The American Society of Business Publication Editors (ASBPE) named SQL Server Magazine "Magazine of the Year" in the less-than-80,000 circulation category in 2002. The two publications generate nine million page impressions monthly, host 2.5 million unique visitors to their web sites monthly, and have more than one million readers with opt-in subscriptions to their email newsletters. The Windows IT Pro Group is the world's leading producer of custom Roadshows, paid conferences and paid workshops for Windows and SQL Server IT professionals.

For more information visit http://www.windowsitpro.com/pressroom/ , and http://www.penton.com/ .

DesktopStandard, PolicyMaker and ProfileMaker are the trademarks or registered trademarks of DesktopStandard Corporation. Other product and company names herein may be trademarks of their registered owners.

Source: DesktopStandard

CONTACT: Tony Keller, of S&S Public Relations, +1-719-634-8279,
tony@sspr.com

Web site: http://www.desktopstandard.com/
http://www.penton.com/
http://www.windowsitpro.com/pressroom

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