A wrap-up of day two at the EUC World Amplify conference
As champions of innovation for end-user computing (EUC), Storage Review proudly sponsors EUC World Amplify 2025.
After an exciting first day at Amplify, we eagerly anticipated the second day. Here’s a recap of the second day of the second annual EUC World Amplify conference, held at the McNamara Alumni Center on the University of Minnesota campus.
Opening Keynote: The Future of End-User Computing
Ruben Sprujit, a well-known figure in the EUC community and the Vice President of Product and Field CTO at Dizzion, delivered the keynote address on the second day of EUC World Amplify. His presentation centered on the importance of knowledge sharing and the future of the industry. Ruben shared valuable personal lessons drawn from his life experiences, including insights from a “freak accident” that highlighted the significance of being present, trusting one’s instincts, and sharing challenges with others.
In the second half of his presentation, he transitioned to an overview of his End User Computing (EUC) Hexagrid, detailing its six pillars, 27 subcategories, and over 280 vendors. The focus was on developments in access, virtual desktops, applications, and user environment management.
No keynote would be complete without mentioning AI, so he briefly touched on the role of AI within the EUC framework.
Citrix Premier Sponsor Session: Why you should move to the latest LTSR Virtual Apps and Desktop 2057
Miguel Contreras, Principal Product Manager at Citrix, shared an update on their latest software release, highlighting significant improvements to user experience and administrative functions.
Key improvements include over 400 new features, emphasizing self-healing and self-sufficiency for troubleshooting and performance monitoring. The update also introduces advancements in security authentication, expanded multi-monitor support, and new tools for optimizing resource utilization across cloud providers to reduce costs. Additionally, Contreras announced the long-awaited support for Entra ID SSO Windows 11, highlighting the collaboration with Microsoft to integrate this feature.
Credit should be attributed to Contreras and EUC World for maintaining the session’s focus on technology rather than turning it into a sales or marketing pitch.
Automation: Where to start?
Chris Hildebrandt, Senior Consultant at Youngtech and Co-Founder of etc/kc, with a focus on EUC. Chris started his career in General IT support and moved to data center operations and infrastructure, moved to the EUC world, and became an architect for a large healthcare player.
In his breakout session, he emphasized a practical approach to automation. To illustrate this, he addressed a long-standing issue in the EUC world: expanding virtual machine disk space. The key idea is to decompose complex problems into smaller, manageable steps and automate each part incrementally. This approach makes the overall process simpler and more efficient.
Hildebrandt highlighted the importance of tools as a valuable resource for connecting automated processes and proactively addressing issues before they affect users. The discussion also underscored the need for accountability and managerial approvals for specific automated actions. This approach ensures a balance between efficiency and oversight in automation. Ultimately, the advice encourages starting with simple automation tasks and refining them over time, rather than trying to solve an entire problem all at once.
Moderated Panel Discussion: Life after Citrix
The moderated panel discussion about life after Citrix didn’t pull any punches as they discussed the profound impact of recent changes at Citrix, including shifts from public to private ownership, licensing model revisions, and organizational restructuring. This includes partners, community leaders, and customers.
The panelists, all former Citrix Technology Professionals (CTPs), discussed how these changes have disrupted established communication channels with vendors, making it challenging to provide feedback and access product roadmaps. The conversation highlighted a shift from dedicated vendor community support to a more self-reliant, distributed community model and emphasized the increasing importance of fostering strong relationships and trust among partners and customers in a complex, hybrid IT landscape, rather than relying on single technology solutions.
Sessions like this make EUC World so much more enjoyable. The panel didn’t attack Citrix but respectfully presented how the changes Citrix has implemented have affected its Citrix customer and user base.
Founding Partner Panel: EUC Solutions—IGEL, Liquidware, Nerdio, 10ZiG
I appreciate how Amplify allows competing companies to share the stage, discussing technology, with only a few jabs and barbs thrown.
The panel discussion featured technology solution partners, including Ed Richardson from 10Zig, Jason Mafera from IGEL, Jason Smith from Liquidware, and Ben Murphy from Nerdio. They focused on innovations in EUC delivery, endpoint operating systems, and application delivery. Key themes included the evolution of platforms to support fragmented application environments, whether on-premises, cloud-based, or in data centers. The importance of user experience and cost predictability was also highlighted. Additionally, the discussion addressed critical aspects such as hardware optimization, sustainability, and advanced security models like Zero Trust, underscoring the need for continuous adaptation to changing technology and market demands.
Finally, the panelists shared personal hobbies, adding a lighthearted touch to the professional discourse. I am going to challenge you to guess who owns a horse farm, enjoys rock crawling with their Jeep, is a wilderness survivalist, and runs a DIY YouTube channel.
Nutanix Premier Sponsor Session: Nutanix for EUC
Kevin Bacon, a Senior Solutions Architect for End User Computing at Nutanix, explored Nutanix’s role in the Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI) sector, emphasizing its dedication to simplifying intricate IT environments.
Kevin highlighted how Nutanix set itself apart by consolidating traditional infrastructure components, from the hypervisor to a single, integrated stack that can be deployed across various hardware platforms and cloud environments.
He went on to discuss some of its key innovations, such as data locality and shadow clones, which are presented as central to achieving high performance and efficiency, particularly in VDI deployments. The discussion also highlighted how Nutanix is actively fostering partnerships with major VDI brokers like Citrix and Omnissa to further streamline user experience and facilitate hybrid cloud adoption. Ultimately, the goal is to make IT operations more straightforward and scalable for end-users, regardless of their location or infrastructure.
M365 Copilot
Not all sessions were strictly EUC-related. Eduardo Molina, Director of Smart Workspace, delivered a session on using MS Copilot.
Eduardo explained the multifaceted world of Microsoft Copilot, emphasizing its practical application and security within organizational contexts. In his presentation, he addresses the reluctance of small and medium businesses (SMB) to disclose their AI usage. This highlights the need for companies to develop a clear vision for AI integration to avoid being outmaneuvered by those who effectively leverage it. He distinguishes between basic Copilot functions as a productivity assistant, Copilot Studio for more complex process automation, and Azure AI Foundry for ground-up AI solution development. This illustrates how these tools enhance efficiency in tasks like presentation creation, meeting summarization, and data analysis.
A key takeaway is that Copilot, especially Copilot Chat, is “grounded on your work,” allowing it to securely access and utilize internal company data from Microsoft 365 environments, unlike generic AI models like ChatGPT. The speaker showcases real-world examples, from generating emails based on internal context to creating pivot tables in Excel, demonstrating how Copilot acts as a secure and robust assistant. It saves time and streamlines workflows by keeping sensitive data within the company’s secure tenant.
The Expo
During a few of the sessions, we snuck onto the expo floor to visit some exhibitors, chat, and take pictures with the vendors, all of whom were excited by the turnout and enthusiasm at Amplify.
A Night on the Town
We were fortunate enough to have the folks from ControlUp and Nerdio, who are local, take us out to show us around downtown Minneapolis. After walking around downtown, we enjoyed a “Silver Butter Knife Steak.” We followed that with a visit to see the iconic Mary Taylor Moore statue and other sights in the old town district.
While roaming the streets, we got into a conversation about what new technology we found most interesting, and we all agreed that Azure Virtual Desktop (AVD) on Azure Local was the most interesting. Ben Murphy, Senior Director of Alliance Management at Nerdio, emphasized that combining Nerdio with AVD on Azure Local yields significant benefits for their customers’ EUC deployments. For those not familiar with Neridio, it provides a lightweight, user and administrator-friendly platform that helps manage complex Azure environments and has found popularity with the EUC community.
He said that when companies run Azure Local, they can run key Azure services on their local machines, including AVD. When combined with Nerdio, this enables faster iteration, better offline desktop development, and cost-effective testing without incurring actual cloud costs. He said that Nerdio, AVD, and Azure Local create a powerful platform for building, debugging, validating, and deploying AVD desktops in a local, controlled environment.
We then agreed that many companies are also looking at Azure Local to comply with government and corporate data sovereignty standards, which are becoming increasingly stringent.
Looking Forward to Day 3
At the end of day two, they announced the seven sessions that will be held on the third day of Amplify during the Unconference. Look for our next installment as we highlight those sessions in our next post from the field.
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