Well, 2011 is almost over, and it’s a been a great year for SDM Software. We achieved record revenue results this year–smashing last year’s total by over 300%– and have over 150 customers to thank for our continued success. This is in addition to the 100os of folks that have downloaded our Group Policy free tools at GPOGUY.COM and SDM Software’s Freeware Page. Our Group Policy solutions such as the GPO Reporting Pak and the award-winning Group Policy Automation Engine are being leveraged by large and small customers alike to help report on and automate management of Group Policy. We continued to invest heavily in providing PowerShell support in all of our products and that will continue as we roll out new products, because I think that PowerShell specifically, and automation in general, will be a key enabler to the future success of IT.
2011 also marked an interesting change in the use of Group Policy. Increasingly our customers are looking at their Group Policy deployments, which in some cases have grown organically over the years, and are looking for ways to help streamline and consolidate those GPOs to improve Windows server and desktop security, as well as improve desktop performance. SDM Software continues to provide powerful, best-in-market tools and expertise to help with these streamlining and consolidation tasks and they’re only going to get better in the coming year.
For 2012, you can expect more changes from the larger Group Policy world, as well as in SDM Software’s product offerings. In 2012, we will likely see Microsoft ship Windows 8. And while the Group Policy changes coming in that new version are mostly incremental, we can expect that Group Policy will continue to play a key role in configuring and securing Windows desktops, servers and, with Windows 8, Windows tablet devices as well.
And despite the lack of big revolutionary changes for Group Policy in Windows 8, I am personally excited about SDM Software in 2012. Shortly after the new year, we’ll be shipping a major update to our GPO Reporting Pak, that will add some cool new capabilities around GPO reporting, comparison, conflict analysis and consolidation as well as key features that our customers have been asking for. Shortly thereafter, you will see some reporting capabilities from us that will finally give IT Pros leveraging Group Policy far better insight into their Group Policy deployments than ever before. Beyond that, expect to see us give you more powerful tools for reporting, migrating and consolidating GPOs as well enhancements to our Group Policy Automation Engine–still the only way to automate changes to Group Policy settings, using PowerShell.
Finally, we have some changes afoot that I am really excited about. As many of you know, the “Cloud” is the latest buzzword to hit the IT world. And while I think much of it can be excused as hype, the promise of cloud-like technologies as a way of dynamically provisioning, configuring and scaling both private and public virtualized computing resources is something that all IT shops will benefit from eventually.
To that end, 2012 will see us deliver our first releases of some exciting technology around cloud-based management of resources.
So, with that, I will end with a brief but heartfelt thank you to our customers for finding value in our products and for helping to make 2011 so succcessful. And I look forward to working with you all to develop some truly exciting technologies in the years ahead! As always, if you have any input on our products or the services we provide, feel free to contact us and I will personally make sure you get a response.
Sincerely,
Darren Mar-Elia CTO & Founder SDM Software