Hey thanks for this, you make some excellent points. To answer them:
"It has long been claimed that a major advantage of Glassware is simplicity. It is so simple that there is no need for on-site IT staff. Your experience certainly does not support that premise."
True - this claim is ridiculous. I can't imagine any non-IT staff being tasked to deploy this system. Managing the apps and permissions, etc, I think would be fine.
"Glassware only supports single executable apps."
Not true. My app has dozens of DLL's, and so would MSFT office and almost every other application. It only supports single executable installers - the key difference. But there are ways around this and I'm sure this will change in the future.
"But more importantly, it does NOT support legacy Windows apps (i.e.. WinXP) out of the box. As you say, to do so requires professional services assistance from Sphere. It took months for Sphere to get a simple app like Pearson Test Nav to work. I guess that means those thousands of WinXP applications and millions of WinXP users are out of scope."
Yes this is absolutely true. They are not quite there yet, which is a concern.
"Your test results also invalidated another claim, "6 clicks to virtualize any app". Your experience was far more work than a mere 6 clicks. Requiring professional services to virtualize a simple Win XP app is far beyond the simplicity of just 6 clicks."
Nothing in the scope of software and IT is ever as simple as 6 clicks. On the surface maybe but complications are always there.
"After five years of development and four months on Azure, you would think someone would have properly tested and documented the install procedures. This is a minor point but indicates a sloppy Quality Control process. Another bad sign for enterprise success."
The install process is documented by Sphere - see the links I posted. However it is surprising to me that this board seems to be one of the few places to find a decent bit of unaffiliated information.
"And you tested the apps on an iPad. What about an iPhone?"
I could not find an iPhone app for GW connect.
"How did printing work? Did you use a network printer or a local printer? What about other peripherals such as a scanner? More importantly for larger shops and schools, how did the system support Group Policies and Updates in Active Directory."
I did not get a chance to test out enterprise infrastructure integration. That will be next on my todo list.
"Let's be frank. Delivering simple text based productivity apps is a no-brainer in 2016, but what about more complex apps that require graphics, audio and real time or streaming video. Are any of those pre-installed? The are the apps that users rely on today in small and large business, healthcare and education."
That's a good question. My application does use Direct3D hardware acceleration and it had no issues but I have not tested beyond that.
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The companies who win from Sphere as it stands now will be the shops that utilize a lot of quasi-legacy data intensive software like financial, accounting, and project management systems. I.e. fat-clients that were developed 10-20 years ago but can still run on Win7 & 10.
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