Since its initial release in 1983, QuickBooks products have branched into industry-specific solutions that are tailored to specific business needs. As cloud-based services matured, the software’s developer, Intuit, launched an online version of QuickBooks that has also seen widespread adoption by organizations that aren’t wedded to the desktop version.

But what if you could use the full desktop version of QuickBooks on any device, without needing to install it, just like the SaaS version? What if you didn’t have to sacrifice functionality and features to get the full flexibility of the online version?

First, let’s review how QuickBooks Desktop and QuickBooks Online differ

QuickBooks online (also called QBO) has a few key differences with the desktop software. The most obvious one has to do with pricing. Whereas QBO, like many SaaS products, is a monthly subscription with pricing tiers that are graduated according to number of users or features, QuickBooks desktop charges an annual fee (or annual subscription, if you prefer to see it that way). 

More importantly, the functionality can vary greatly between the two product categories. Intuit seems to target QBO toward small business owners and distinguishes it through features like mobile app integration. QuickBooks Desktop software, by contrast, is actually split out into three different products—QuickBooks Pro Plus, Premier Plus and Enterprise—that offer industry-specific features and more advanced capabilities.

However, as their name suggests, the variants in the QuickBooks Desktop line are not optimized for remote access or mobile devices. This makes these QuickBooks products more PC-oriented, whereas QBO’s cloud-based and mobile app capabilities require an Internet connection.

Those differences raise an important and frequently asked question: Which QuickBooks version is best suited to your business?

Hard choices: QuickBooks Online vs Quickbooks Desktop

For organizations that can fulfill their bookkeeping requirements with QBO’s cloud-based accounting, there’s no need for them to feel pressured into using QuickBooks desktop products. The various tiers of QBO, including the basic Simple Start plan, do offer fairly rich accounting features like time tracking, expense tracking and PayPal integration as well as the ease of use that users expect from SaaS products. The monthly subscription model might also be more attractive than the desktop pricing.

Larger businesses that need robust bank reconciliation capabilities, highly scalable inventory management and flexible automation integration are probably better served by QuickBooks’ pro-grade desktop Premier and desktop Enterprise variants. In fact, even small businesses that primarily comprise desktop users might prefer some of the functionality of the desktop QuickBooks products to QuickBooks Online.

But many organizations might still be left feeling like both versions of QuickBooks have show-stopping pros and cons. Sometimes it can come down to a single essential accounting feature that one or the other is lacking. For example, an organation might want the enterprise-tier handling of bank transactions and inventory management of QuickBooks Desktop software without having to sacrifice some of the user-friendly mobile capabilities and remote access. 

Is there a QuickBooks product that offers the best of both worlds?

Cameyo turns QuickBooks Desktop into a cloud-native app

While the key differences between QBO and its desktop version counterparts will continue to exist for the foreseeable future, you can bridge the gap with Cameyo’s Virtual App Delivery (VAD) solution. Using Cameyo, organizations can provide all or part of their workforce with the desktop versions of QuickBooks—whether you’re talking Pro Plus, Premier Plus or Enterprise—on any device, no matter where those users happen to be. All without having to install & manage the application on any of those devices. 

Cameyo’s pioneering Virtual App Delivery platform provides access to the Windows-native app in real-time via a secure HTML5 browser session. That means employees on Mac, ChromeOS, Linux and Windows computers, not to mention mobile devices like iPads and Android devices, can use full-featured QuickBooks Desktop products securely at home, on the road, as well as in-house. There’s no software redevelopment involved, no compromise on functionality and no learning curve. Users can continue to work with a company file the same way they would in QBO or, say, one of the desktop pro products like QuickBooks Enterprise.

This doesn’t just open up new possibilities for organizations that feel torn between QuickBooks’ cloud-based and desktop software. It also allows desktop-centric organizations to rapidly SaaS-ify their existing QuickBooks solution. If you already have templates, a chart of accounts and ecommerce settings (such as credit card processing) configured for QuickBooks desktop, Cameyo gives you the ability to cloud-enable that install without having to engage specialized professional services to perform an on-prem to cloud migration. And Cameyo does that while also circumventing the need for expensive and insecure VPNs.

The best part is that this ability isn’t limited to QuickBooks. Cameyo enables any software for cloud-based remote access from any device—including processor-intensive titles like AutoCAD and Adobe Creative Cloud. This eliminates the pain of having to choose between the desktop features your organization needs and the simple, SaaS experience that your users want.

Whether you’re trying to decide between QBO and QuickBooks Pro Plus or you want to SaaS-enable an existing QuickBooks desktop product, sign up now for your free trial of Cameyo and see how to expand your options. Just because a software product says “Desktop” or “Enterprise” no longer means that it can’t be cloud-enabled for your workforce. And if you’d like more detail on Cameyo’s security and ease of use before giving it a test run, simply reach out to us and schedule a demo with one of our engineers instead.

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A significant part of digital transformation involves modernizing legacy applications. This process takes existing applications that aren’t cloud-native and adapts them using modern frameworks and APIs in order to take advantage of the functionality offered by new technologies.

To give a practical example of application modernization: An accounting team, now working full- or part-time from home, uses a software suite that only runs on Windows desktops. In the not-too-distant past, you’d be stuck keeping these legacy systems running and trying to find some way of giving users remote access to that business-critical software.
An app modernization strategy comes at this problem from a different angle. By replatforming and rearchitecting legacy software, existing apps can instead be designed to meet your users where they’re at.

An Overview of App Modernization

The main takeaway on application modernization is that there are many paths to get there. We recently outlined an app modernization process using available Microsoft platforms—but, as we also point out in the same article, that represents just one of many modernization approaches. The modernization journey will in fact look different for every organization based on its unique business needs. And, of course, its budget.

However, a lot of professional guidance on app modernization projects takes several things for granted. For one, it assumes a certain familiarity with the cutting edge of software development, so there will be a lot of talk about refactoring legacy apps by leveraging new application architectures or rehosting legacy systems by means of various microservices. Companies that don’t have DevOps teams at their disposal or business models that allow for major IT projects will instead get referred to external legacy application modernization services.

As a result, app modernization has acquired a reputation for being incredibly complex and very expensive. But that doesn’t have to be the case. Among the many options for transforming legacy software into modern applications, there are straightforward and cost-effective solutions available to everyone from enterprise-scale organizations to independent software vendors (ISVs).

3 Easy Steps for Legacy Application Modernization Overnight

Modernizing a single legacy app or even an entire application portfolio is possible in three easy steps.

1. Sign up for a free trial of Cameyo. You’ll have the choice of utilizing our fully hosted version in Google Cloud or Azure. Or you can self-host Cameyo in your own cloud environment or on-premises datacenter. It works wherever you work.
2. Follow the simple self-guided instructions on how to publish your applications in Cameyo. This process is all point-and-click using an intuitive GUI with icons and drop-down menus. There’s no coding or software development involved.
3. Give people convenient, secure access to the full desktop version of your legacy application, running in any HTML5 browser, with just a few clicks in Cameyo. Your end users will be able to work with your apps as if they were cloud-native, running them anywhere and on any device with the exact same user experience they already know.

That’s all there is to it. You’ve just completed your app modernization project and achieved a huge leap in your digital transformation.

The speed and seamlessness of Cameyo’s Virtual App Delivery (VAD) platform helps to ensure that there are no disruptions to productivity. The scalability of Cameyo allows you to publish new legacy applications and add new users without anything close to the resource investment and operating costs of replatforming or refactoring solutions. And the inherent optimization of Cameyo delivers an outstanding user or customer experience even on BYOD or ultra-mobile devices.

As such, Cameyo’s business value is unmatched. Whereas most app modernization initiatives warn of “minimal changes” and require at least some software development skill, Cameyo retains all the functionality of the existing desktop app with zero redevelopment effort. You get a solution that can support modern workloads and agile work environments, yet it works with your existing software, hardware and IT resources.

How Businesses Are Modernizing Their Legacy Applications with Cameyo

Global enterprises and regional ISVs are using Cameyo to make software-as-a-service (SaaS)-enabled modern applications out of their existing software solutions.

• Moblize provides a powerful suite of cloud-based AI and Big Data solutions for the oil and gas industry. By combining the strengths of Cameyo and Amazon Web Services (AWS), Moblize was able to reach new levels of scalability while giving its customers a seamless user experience across multiple platforms. “We needed to take all of these legacy desktop apps and bring them into a cloud environment so that anyone, from anywhere, can access them on any device – even tablets and non-Windows laptops. The fact that Cameyo is so much less complex than other solutions enabled incredibly quick time to market,” said Moblize CM\EO Amitt Mehta
• ClienTrax was looking at a 4-year replatforming process when it aimed to SaaS-ify its popular desktop-OS veterinary practice management application. “In order to continue to compete, we knew we needed to redevelop our application for the web. Cameyo not only eliminates the cost and complexity but it is also incredibly simple to use – both on our end and for our customers. There’s simply no more secure, cost-effective and simple way to deliver any app to any device from the web,” said ClienTrax Director of Operations Craig Markus.
• Faced with software development costs of $2 million and an 18-month refactoring timeframe for its enterprise resource planning (ERP) platform, Brazil’s Tático ERP was unhappy with any of its app modernization options. Then they discovered Cameyo, which created a cloud-native solution out of the existing application. ”Almost overnight, Cameyo made Tático available to users on tablets, Chromebooks, Apple devices – anything!” said Tático CEO Henrique Netzka.

Whether you’ve got a small set of users who need anywhere, any-device access to a legacy application or you’re an ISV who wants to take an existing application portfolio to the cloud, Cameyo makes even the most daunting app modernization projects into something quick, easy and cost-effective. Starting your rapid modernization journey is as easy as signing up for your free trial or requesting a demo of Cameyo today.

The post Three Simple Steps to Legacy Application Modernization appeared first on Cameyo.

One of the resources in the DevOps toolkit is application modernization. App modernization is a process whereby software that might fall short of today’s system requirements (also known as legacy applications) is enabled to run in up-to-date app environments and handle modern workloads.

This article is for anyone new to the concept of application modernization and is contemplating Microsoft Azure as a potential route to achieving that goal. It also speaks to anyone trying to determine if a full-scale modernization effort is necessary for their existing applications and whether it’s suited to their business needs.

First, we’ll take a brief look at the primary candidates for application modernization. Then we’ll dive into what’s typically involved in software modernization or rearchitecting initiatives. We’ll wrap up by considering available alternatives to software redevelopment that could be easier, faster, and less expensive than Azure migration. 

Who Needs Application Modernization?

First things first: App modernization means different things to different audiences.

For some, it’s about breathing new life or bringing new functionality to the software they license or have purchased from external vendors. For others, application modernization is about taking the software they develop in-house or offer to other organizations and imbuing it with new modes of access and scalability.

Some of the typical candidates for app modernization include:

• Cloud enablers: These companies are using legacy Windows software that lacks web app functionality altogether. However, their end-users need cloud access to their existing applications. The hurdle here involves making cloud-native applications out of software that isn’t natively enabled for use with standard cloud platforms.
• Feature enhancers: Some companies might be working with a legacy version of a Windows app that has already been web-enabled, only to discover that the web application doesn’t have the feature set they need. For these organizations, the main concern is getting desktop-class applications to their users without the usual desktop dependencies.
• ISVs: On the other side of the equation are independent software vendors (ISVs – see an example like ProSolutions) who develop and sell their software solutions. These businesses want to web-enable their software to offer their customers a SaaS version. But they quickly realize that the application development effort needed to turn legacy software into cloud solutions is time-consuming and expensive—and it still might not deliver the desired customer experience.

All three of these examples fall under the more extensive digital transformation process, which is about taking analog processes and legacy software and turning both into streamlined, cost-effective modern applications.

Modernizing Legacy Applications with Microsoft Azure

If your app modernization strategy centers around Microsoft Azure, you have a couple of options. The most popular of these options involve the cloud platform’s serverless infrastructure-as-a-service (IaaS), platform-as-a-service (PaaS), or containers-as-a-service (CaaS) offerings.

It’s easy to get deep into the weeds when discussing the differences between these options, so we’ll cover some of the basics here:

• The Azure App Service is an HTTP-based service designed for hosting web applications, REST APIs, and mobile backends. With this suite of tools, you can take code based on different application architectures (e.g., .NET, Java, Ruby, Node.js, PHP) and rework it into what is essentially an Azure application.
• For applications that use SQL servers, the Azure SQL Database is a cloud infrastructure alternative to on-premises datacenters. Instead of rearchitecting SQL-dependent software from scratch, some organizations might see added business value in migrating to this cloud-based solution.
• Microsoft’s Azure Database Migration Service can help import existing SQL database(s) to the Azure SQL Managed Instance (PaaS) or SQL Server on Azure Virtual Machines (IaaS). Organizations can also leverage this same cloud migration service with non-SQL databases, such as moving MongoDB on-premises to the Azure Cosmos DB API.
• Azure DevOps provides a range of developer services and microservices intending to support dedicated enterprise-class DevOps teams. With access to features like Azure Pipelines and Azure Repos, those teams can strategize, collaborate, build and deploy cloud-native applications.
• As detailed in this article, Microsoft now offers an Azure Migrate: App Containerization tool that allows organizations to put apps in standalone virtual “bubbles” that include all necessary dependencies. These apps are powered in part by the Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS) or the Azure App Service (AAS). As of this writing, the containerization tool supports ASP.NET applications and a limited set of Java web applications.

None of these options is for the faint of heart. One glance at any diagram in those linked articles shows the complex tangle of microservices and backends involved in simple Azure cloud migration.

And any mention of “easy” clearly has to be taken into context. Sure, it might be easy for the IT professional who’s steeped in software refactoring, Windows server programming, and managed services. But even with a highly skilled DevOps team at your disposal, your organization is looking at a significant investment of time and money just to move a single legacy application to the cloud.

Furthermore, a seamless Azure migration experience still doesn’t guarantee that your newly rearchitected web application will retain all the functionality and availability that your end-users or customers will expect.

Alternatives for Accelerating Microsoft App Modernization

Cameyo’s virtual application delivery (VAD) platform puts powerful, straightforward application modernization tools into everyone’s hands. Any organization, including ISVs, can transform existing software into SaaS-enabled web applications overnight. The reason it’s so quick, easy, and cost-effective is that there’s zero redevelopment or rearchitecting required.

How Cameyo works is simple. It makes legacy applications running in standard Windows server environments accessible to users via any HTML5-capable web browser. By initiating an HTTPS-encrypted session through that browser, users can interact with their familiar desktop software just as if they were running it on their local device. Cameyo’s secure, platform-agnostic approach means they can enjoy the complete feature set and performance of their business-critical desktop software, even on slim mobile devices and Chromebooks.

With Cameyo, ProSolutions Software modernized its spa and salon management software suite for more than 1,200 customers at a considerable savings of time, money, and headache.

According to ProSolutions COO Mark Wiggins, “We received a quote that told us it would cost between $3–5 million to redevelop our platform for the web, and it would take 12–18 months. And in the end, it would likely only have had around 80% feature parity with our existing version. There was no way we were going to pay millions of dollars, only to provide our customers with less functionality than they were used to.”

The European enterprise resource planning (ERP) solutions provider Vantea SMART faced a similar problem.

“Redeveloping our solutions for the web would have taken at least one year and would have cost a minimum of $250,000 – and probably much more. At the end of the day, we needed a simpler and more cost-effective way to deliver the desktop experience that our customers are used to, through the browser instead of an installed app,” said Leonardo Nuzzo, Team Leader, Research & Development at Vantea SMART.

Cameyo was key to turning the company’s entire suite of solutions for business operations, accounting, logistics, digital storage management, point of sale, and eCommerce into modern web applications within a single week.

Zero-redevelopment App Modernization for ISVs and Beyond

ProSolutions and Vantea SMART aren’t alone. Moblize and Tático ERP achieved similar results by pairing their existing applications with Cameyo to reach new levels of scalability and availability while satisfying their customers’ evolving business needs.

If you’re an ISV who wants to take your software into the cloud without compromising the customer experience or sinking more resources into digital transformation, Cameyo could be the ideal application modernization solution. Check out all that our VAD platform can do for you—all the way from the trial phase to ongoing managed services.

Along with zero redevelopment time, there’s zero risk in determining whether Cameyo will work for your app modernization use case. Simply sign up for a free trial or schedule a demo of Cameyo today.

The post What You Need to Know About Microsoft Application Modernization appeared first on Cameyo.

If you want to use Windows 10X and still run your legacy Windows applications, there are going to be some issues, at least for a while. Here’s what TechRepublic had to say about it:

By building an OS from the ground up, Microsoft has been able to significantly redesign Windows. But that means it won’t run all your old software. The original plan for Windows 10X was to use a set of application containers to isolate new and old code, supporting Win32 apps alongside newer UWP apps while keeping applications, OS, and data all isolated, and supporting MSI, MSIX and APPX installers. But things have changed.

That’s resulted in a delay for native Win32 support, with only UWP apps running on the initial releases. Microsoft is planning to add support for legacy applications at some point in the future, but if you’re thinking of working with Windows 10X at the start you’re going to need to support UWP, using Microsoft’s WinRT APIs. Alternatively, your apps will need to be web apps that can be packaged as Progressive Web Apps (PWAs), installed from the Windows Store or from inside Microsoft’s Edge browser.

Basically, a lot of applications simply are not going to work with Windows 10X until native Win32 support is added, which will likely be 1-2 more years. Microsoft has known about this problem for a while and is working on something called Project Reunion to help address this by creating a path to modernizing apps. BUT…

Not all applications will be able to take advantage of Project Reunion or the Windows Store. That might be because they’re needed now rather than in a year or two, and are unable to wait for the APIs they need to be shipped. Businesses and schools will find it easier to take advantage of Microsoft’s alternate option for their code than consumers, as IT departments will be able to configure the cloud-hosted Windows Virtual Desktops to deliver remote apps to users, using the UWP Remote Desktop tool to deliver user interfaces to Windows 10X devices, while the code runs on a managed virtual machine on Azure.  

If you’re thinking that this sounds like you won’t be able to use a lot of your business-critical applications with Windows 10X for quite some time, you’re right. And if you’re thinking that there must be a better way – you’re right again! 

Luckily there’s an easy way to maintain access to all of your legacy Windows applications with Windows 10X by utilizing Cameyo. Cameyo is the secure virtual application delivery platform for any Digital Workspace, and enables you to deliver all of your business-critical Windows and web applications to any device, from the browser. Not only can you enable your people to utilize Windows 10X while still giving them secure access to the legacy Windows apps that Windows 10X doesn’t support, but you can do the same for ALL of your people, regardless of OS.

Do you have some people on Macs, Chromebooks, or maybe even some older systems still running Windows 7? No problem. Any device with an HTML browser can easily and securely access all of their Windows and web apps from one place with Cameyo. And your people continue to get access to the full desktop version of the software they’re used to, just running in a browser tab. 

Even better – with Cameyo you can be up and running in hours, not weeks or months. For example, Klarahill was able to deploy Cameyo in just 3 hours (see the case study here, and the rest of our case studies here).

You can see for yourself how easy it is by starting your free trial here, where you can see how simple it is to publish your first application within just 10 minutes. You can also watch a quick demo video here. Or if you’d like a personalized demo to see how this could work in your environment, request a demo here. We’re here to help every step of the way, so let us know if you have any questions. 

The post What You Need to Know About Your Applications and Windows 10X appeared first on Cameyo.

Cameyo provides a simple, cost-effective, and secure way to deliver all your Windows and web apps to any device, from the browser. The Cameyo Virtual App Delivery platform is built for the Cloud and can be set up in minutes with no technical experience required – as you’ll see in this video. Note that this isn’t a fancy, edited video that cuts together the process to make it seem shorter and easier. This is just 5 straight minutes of Dustin, one of our Customer Engineers, walking you step-by-step through the process of publishing and delivering your first application: 

Want a deeper dive demo to see how Cameyo can help with your specific use cases and apps? Book a full demo here. Or would you rather take Cameyo for a spin yourself? Get started with your no-credit-card-required free trial here and you’ll be up and running in minutes. 

The post How to Securely Deliver Windows Apps to Any Device in Just 5 Minutes appeared first on Cameyo.