LAS VEGAS – VMware is continuing to revise and renovate its product lineup to stay on top, if this week’s announcements at VMWorld in Las Vegas are any indication.
The company has unveiled several updates for its Workspace ONE digital workspace solution to improve onboarding, application delivery, and endpoint management on any platform, while also adding a new, more comprehensive insight service.
Workspace ONE is VMware’s application and access management, endpoint management, and virtual application delivery platform that is based on two other VMware products, AirWatch for endpoint management, and Horizon for virtual application delivery.
With the new updates, customers will be able to use Workspace ONE as a “single solution to enable unified endpoint management (UEM) and unify the end user experience across all endpoint platforms including Windows, macOS, Chrome OS, iOS, and Android,” the company says at VMWorld. It becomes the first industry solution to manage Chrome devices, and will make it much simpler for customers to manage such devices running the latest OS version.
It will also now integrate application programming interfaces (APIs) from significant endpoint platform providers to keep pace with the latest innovations in devices and applications.
Additionally, the platform will also offer cloud-based peer-to-peer (P2P) software distribution technology that will help install large applications to distributed PCs at scale. Good news for enterprises, this feature will reduce and possibly eliminate entirely the need for expensive branch office servers that require silo-ed infrastructure management.
“The modern workforce is stretching the limits of IT as employees embrace cloud and mobile technologies to perform work throughout the day using a growing variety of endpoints and platforms,” Sumit Dhawan, senior vice president and general manager of end-user computing at VMware, explains. “Partnering with major endpoint platform providers gives us the ability to deliver a modern unified solution that enables our customers to break free from silo-ed management stacks and user experiences. Workspace ONE will give businesses the agility and security that is critical to digital transformation initiatives.”
With these updates, VMware is trying a more modern, mobile-esque approach to self-service onboarding and productivity for both Windows and macOS users. In an Aug. 29 press release, the company says employees with new laptops can be up and running in minutes thanks to its out of the box enrollment and self-service applications. Not only will this simplify the complex and error-prone desktop management model, it will reduce costs and improve security with the ability to quarantine and update and device in real time using the cloud.
Customers have had a chance to review the newly updated platform and Jennifer Manry, vice president of workforce technology at Capital One, says that the streamlining of provisioning and management of endpoints across its thousands of employees is helping the company improve productivity without sacrificing experience.
“This enables us to provide choice without increasing administrative overhead and empower our teams to focus on what they do best – building new software, services, and breakthrough experiences for our customers to help them with their financial health,” she adds.
Workspace ONE is also getting a new add-on service called Workspace ONE Intelligence, which will deliver far-reaching insights and automated actions to speed up planning, enhance security, and provide an overall better end user experience in an increasingly mobile and challenging world. Specifically, it will enable insight into things like application deployment, usage, device security, and security to help IT teams understand the performance and security of their digital workspace environments. Built-in rules engine will also give customers the choice of automated actions that can provide real-time security and performance optimization that legacy models don’t have.
Last but not least, Windows apps are getting some love from VMware, as its Horizon product will now allow customers to deliver traditional Windows applications using a cloud service.
“Together with Horizon Cloud, customers will now have options for elastic infrastructure for on-premises or cloud,” VMware says in the press release, saying that this removes the need for deep planning and operational visibility for infrastructure components.
All these upgrades will be generally available in the third quarter of fiscal year 2018 (FY18) except for Workspace ONE Intelligence, which will go public in the fourth quarter of FY18.