quest software

Quest Releases PowerGUI PowerPack for VMware 2.0

December 24, 2008 by Robin Wauters Leave a Comment

Quest Software announced the release of version 2.0 of its PowerGUI PowerPack for VMware, expanding the company’s leadership in Windows and Virtualization Management along with the technology provided by Vizioncore.

The new updates for Quest’s PowerGUI PowerPack for VMware includes a full featured PowerShell script library for VMware, to provide enhanced virtualization management capabilities for VMware admins. It enables virtualization domain experts to take advantage of managing their virtual infrastructure using Quest PowerGUI and the VMware Infrastructure Toolkit for Windows.

PowerGUI is a free download which simplifies management via Microsoft Windows PowerShell with an intuitive user console, powerful script editor and platform specific PowerPacks. PowerGUI with the VMware PowerPack version 2.0 enables administrators to quickly and easily automate management tasks common to virtual infrastructures. Together, Windows PowerShell, PowerGUI, and the PowerGUI PowerPack for VMware provide the ability to manage not only the applications organizations depend on but also the virtual infrastructure that power them, all from a single console.

Quest Releases PowerGUI PowerPack for VMware 2.0

December 19, 2008 by Robin Wauters Leave a Comment

PowerGUI is a free download available which simplifies management via Microsoft Windows PowerShell with an intuitive user console, powerful script editor and platform specific PowerPacks. PowerGUI with the VMware PowerPack version 2.0 enables administrators to quickly and easily automate management tasks common to virtual infrastructures. Together, Windows PowerShell, PowerGUI, and the PowerGUI PowerPack for VMware provide the ability to manage not only the applications organizations depend on but also the virtual infrastructure that power them, all from a single console.

Industry Moves: Promotions at Quest Software

October 10, 2008 by Robin Wauters Leave a Comment

After announcing that its board of directors has authorized a modified “Dutch auction” tender offer to repurchase between $135 million and $400 million of its common stock, Quest Software has announced some promotions as well.

The company has appointed Doug Garn as the company’s chief executive officer. Garn, who was also appointed to the company’s board of directors, will continue in his role as president. As CEO and president, Garn will be responsible for the day-to-day operations of Quest. He joined Quest in 1998 and has served as the company’s president since February 2005. Prior to that, he served as Quest’s vice president of worldwide sales.

The company has also announced that Vinny Smith has been appointed to the newly created full-time position of executive chairman of the company’s board of directors. In this role, Smith will be responsible for leading the strategic direction of Quest. As executive chairman, Smith will play an active role in managing Quest’s product direction and will continue to be responsible for Quest’s corporate development strategy. Smith joined Quest as a director in 1995 and was appointed chief executive officer in 1997. In 1998, he was appointed chairman of Quest’s board of directors.

Quest Software Intends To Buy Up to $400 Million of Its Common Stock

October 10, 2008 by Robin Wauters 1 Comment

Quest Software recently announced that its board of directors has authorized a modified “Dutch auction” tender offer to repurchase between $135 million and $400 million of its common stock at a price per share expected to be not less than $13.25 and not greater than $15.50.

Based on the midpoint of the price range, this would represent between 9 percent and 26 percent of the shares of Quest common stock currently issued and outstanding. The company anticipates obtaining debt financing in an aggregate principal amount of up to $300 million to provide financing for a portion of the repurchase. If Quest is unable to secure such financing on acceptable terms, Quest still expects to proceed with the tender offer or to commence an open-market repurchase program, but the repurchase would be funded from cash on-hand, subject to applicable California corporate law limitations, and the aggregate size of the repurchase would likely be at the low end of the range stated above.

In light of the recent extreme volatility of trading in the company’s common stock and because the size of the prospective tender offer has yet to be determined, the company’s board of directors will decide the actual price range for the tender offer when such offer is commenced based on all of the circumstances at that time. Quest intends to commence the tender offer or other repurchase program and to announce the final number of shares, the timing and other details of the offer or other program later this month.

The modified “Dutch auction” would allow Quest’s shareholders to tender some or all of their shares at a price within the specified range. Based on the number of shares tendered and the prices specified by the tendering shareholders, Quest will determine the lowest price per share within the range that will enable it to purchase the total number of shares subject to the offer, or such lesser aggregate amount of its common stock that is properly tendered. All shares accepted in the tender offer will be purchased at the same price per share even if a shareholder tendered at a lower price. Vinny Smith, executive chairman of Quest, intends to tender three million shares in the tender offer, which constitutes approximately 9% of the shares beneficially owned by him. We cannot yet determine the extent to which our other directors and executive officers may participate in the tender offer.

With the assistance of the company’s executive management and outside advisors, Quest’s board of directors has evaluated the company’s operations, strategy and expectations and has determined that repurchasing a portion of Quest’s shares of common stock is a prudent use of the company’s financial resources. Quest believes that its current stock price levels do not reflect the current performance or long-term growth prospects of its business. Accordingly, Quest believes that an investment in its own stock at the range of offered prices represents an attractive strategic transaction.

The tender offer, when commenced, will be subject to a number of terms and conditions, including any applicable corporate and regulatory requirements and, in the event of a leveraged tender offer, the receipt of financing described above, all of which terms and conditions will be specified in an offer to purchase to be filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission on the date the offer is commenced.

Provision Networks Introduces Quest Experience Optimization Pack (EOP)

September 11, 2008 by Robin Wauters Leave a Comment

Provision Networks, a division of Quest, today unveiled its Experience Optimization Pack (EOP). Quest EOP is an extension suite for Microsoft’s Remote Desktop Protocol (RDP) aimed to eliminate the adoption barriers of hosted desktop virtualization in all use case scenarios over both local area and wide area networks.

Hosted desktop technologies such as VDI, Blade PCs or even presentation virtualization rely on RDP to provide access and connectivity. RDP, however, does not deliver a PC-like, or even a near PC-like, experience. Quest’s EOP embraces and extends RDP and delivers the optimal user experience for LAN and WAN connectivity. Quest EOP:

Delivers support for bi-directional audio, enabling organizations to deploy dictation, collaboration and certain VOIP applications.
Accelerates the delivery of multimedia content such as recorded webcasts and web-based training from remote virtualized desktops and applications.
Dramatically improves the remoting of graphics including browser and flash acceleration.
Eliminates the effects of network latency which can cause havoc even for simple applications such as word processing.

Quest’s EOP is available immediately as an optional add-on to the Provision Networks Virtual Access Suite v5.10, the enterprise multi-platform desktop virtualization solution.

Quest Software Releases Provision Networks Virtual Access Suite 5.10

July 28, 2008 by Robin Wauters Leave a Comment

Patrick Rouse, Sales Engineer at Quest Software, wrote up a blog post to announce that their Provision Networks division has shipped the new version of the company’s cross-platform VDI connection broker, Virtual Access Suite (VAS) 5.10. The 5.9 version was released to the public in December of 2007, and had one service pack, so all the following features are new to version 5.10:

Web Portal – Web-IT:

Web-IT migrated to ASP.Net 1.1 to ASP.Net 2.0
Web-IT config files migrated from text to XML files to support future automation
Web-IT Integration With Juniper Secure Access
Smart Card login support

Clients:

Ticketing – Secure tickets will be issued per connection request, obviating the need to embed hashed user credentials inside .pit connection files
Enhanced Multi-monitor support
Updated Linux and Java Clients
PXE Boot Linux Client
LiveCD Linux Client
All AppPortal Client settings can be stored in a single configuration file
Java Client fully supported via Secure Gateway

Connection Broker & Management Console:

Support for Microsoft Hyper-V
Support for Virtual Iron 4.3.x
Dynamic Computer Group Auto-expansion – Auto Provisioning of new computers
Server Provisioning
Delete computers that have not been used in a specified number of days
Realtime enumeration of running processes on Managed Computers
Termination of running processes on Managed Computers.
Power Management of ACPI and WoL (Wake on LAN) capable computers and servers
MSI Package Deployment to Computer Groups or Managed Computers and servers
Disable/Enable Computer Groups or Managed Computers during maintenance cycles
Unique Computer names enforced across Desktop Groups and Data Centers
Display Realtime License Usage
Retrieval and display of VM Template Sizes
Wizard Driven Managed Desktop creation
Streamlined Softgrid Integration
Option to bypass proxy settings for Console to Broker communication
Verification of sufficient disk space on target storage when provisioning servers or desktops.

Task Automation for Power Management (multiple recurrence options or single instance):

Power Off
Power On
Reset
Resume – for VMware and Hyper-V
Standby – for ACPI & WoL Devices
Suspend -for VMware and Hyper-V
Wakeup – for ACPI & WoL Devices

Task Automation for Operating System operations (multiple recurrence options or single instance):

Log off user
Reset Session
Restart O/S
Shutdown O/S

Task Automation for Virtual machines (multiple recurrence options or single instance):

Delete VM
Delete VM not accessed in a specified number of days

Task Automation for Miscellaneous Tasks (multiple recurrence options or single instance):

Copy file to computer
Enable/Disable Computer
Initialize Computer
Run Program/Script on Computer

Task Automation for MSI Packages (multiple recurrence options or single instance):

Install MSI Package
Update MSI Package
Uninstall MSI Package

Setup Program:

Wizard-based setup program to automate database creation, upgrade, and management of VMware trust store and Virtual Iron jar libraries
Terminal Servers and Connection Brokers are automatically added to the Provision Farm in the Provision Management Console.

Experience Optimization Pack:

Bi-directional Audio – Microphone Redirection
Local Text Echo – Latency Masking for typing over latent networks
Multi-media Redirection – seamlessly redirects multi-media content to the client CODEC for local playback. – This will be released as a separate 5.10 update, as it has not been released from QA yet.