DesktopStandard Showcases Solutions at Microsoft Air Force Symposium 2006

Vendor announces recent U.S. Air Force acquisition of PolicyMaker

REDMOND, WA (Microsoft Air Force Symposium, March 15th, 2006) – DesktopStandard® Corporation is exhibiting their industry leading family of Group Policy-based Enterprise Desktop Management products at this year’s Microsoft Air Force Symposium. At the symposium, DesktopStandard today announced their latest US Air Force (USAF) customer, Hanscom Air Force Base, Electronic Systems Command. Lockheed Martin Information Technology (LMIT) selected PolicyMaker™ and is implementing the solution. DesktopStandard has existing deployments at multiple USAF locations, including, Vandenberg, Ankara, and Randolph.

DesktopStandard continues to advance the USAF mission to increase standardization and security with this deployment of PolicyMaker to support the Command, Control and Information Systems operations at Hanscom AFB. Dave Latina, IT Operations Manager for Hanscom AFB, explains, “PolicyMaker provides us with a solution to effectively lock down our user accounts and to meet our Least Privilege User Access requirements. Furthermore, PolicyMaker will allow us to set and maintain desktop configuration standards to help comply with our initiative to reduce energy consumption. We expect that proper enforcement of power save functions can lead to savings of up to $50 per computer per year.”

LMIT’s installation of PolicyMaker will enable operations to meet the Air Staff requirements for Least Privilege user access control and enforcement of configuration policy, as outlined by the USAF Standard Desktop Configuration (SDC) initiative. Mike Bradshaw, Director of Department of Defense Sales for Microsoft, explained the problems that government agencies face when attempting to implement Least Privilege, “Despite the fact that least privileged-user accounts (LUA) are widely accepted as an essential security measure in preventing attacks, many organizations have failed to implement this precaution. A main reason for this is that a substantial number of applications and operating system tasks cannot run in such a restricted environment. DesktopStandard’s PolicyMaker product solves this dilemma with a Group Policy Extension that allows restricted users to run approved applications and perform authorized tasks.”

DesktopStandard was the first company to provide Group Policy Extensions, allowing organizations to leverage their training and infrastructure investments in Microsoft’s Active Directory. The company was also the first to provide a Least Privilege solution by managing application permissions, and with it’s GPOVault™ product was the first to integrate change control features into Microsoft’s Group Policy Management Console (GPMC). These patent-pending innovations and award-winning applications have helped thousands of organizations quickly achieve standardization, security and compliance goals by leveraging existing and supported infrastructure, tools and methods.

About DesktopStandard Corporation
DesktopStandard Corporation is the leading developer of Group Policy-based enterprise desktop management products. The company has more than 3,500 customers, more than 4 million desktops under management and a worldwide network of integrators and resellers. DesktopStandard is a Microsoft Gold Certified ISV.

DesktopStandard products have won many prestigious awards, including the “Most Innovative Product of 2005” (Windows IT Pro Readers’ Choice Awards), “Most Valuable Product” (Redmond Magazine), “Best Product of 2005 - Policy Management” (MSD2D People’s Choice Security Award), and the “2004 Active Directory Product of the Year” (SearchWin2000.com).

For more information, visit www.desktopstandard.com.

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