Microsoft SoftGrid and ZeroTouch

I know there have been a lot of questions regarding the availability of ZeroTouch for Microsoft SoftGrid (or lack thereof) so I thought I’d take this opportunity to clarify the current state of the product as well as its future as it stands today. But first, what is ZeroTouch? Well, to be more precise, the question should be what was ZeroTouch. ZeroTouch was a lot of things but it can best be summarized as an add-on to SoftGrid that provided self-provisioning, world-wide application availability via a web based front end, and intelligent application deployment based on a users network, application and device.

Now I know what you’re thinking – So if ZeroTouch did all these cool things why is it no longer available? We all agree that these are all good features to have and that our customers appreciate and value them, but after much consideration and deliberation the decision was made to enhance the offering and better align it with other Microsoft products. Once we do this we will be in a better position to provide a more complete and satisfying user experience for application provisioning both for the desktop and for Terminal Services.  During this alignment period, Microsoft will honor existing license agreements and provide support to existing customers but the product in its current state will no longer be made available. Once realigned, the product will likely be a component of other Microsoft products and follow their release schedule, and we plan on releasing more details along with a new product roadmap sometime in June. We apologize for any inconvenience this may cause but rest assured that in the long run, when we’re done you’ll be able to enjoy a more robust enterprise class solution.

We hope you found this information of value and remember, if you have any comments, feedback or suggestions for future topics please let us know.

- The Microsoft SoftGrid Team