VMware introduces Workspace ONE innovations and showcases continued collaboration with Microsoft

VMware, Inc. introduced an addition to its digital workspace portfolio with VMware Workspace ONE Essentials, a new standalone secure digital workspace solution for unified access to business data and applications. With this addition, the expanded Workspace ONE solution portfolio will enable companies to standardize on digital workspaces that can extend across all end-user types and use cases for company-wide deployment. In addition, innovations in Workspace ONE will include enhanced security with new data loss prevention (DLP) capabilities for Office 365 and improved end-user experiences with expanded mobile single sign-on (SSO) to all enterprise web applications. Lastly, continued collaboration withMicrosoft will showcase a technology preview of optimized delivery of Skype for Business in VMware Horizon that uses peer-to-peer endpoint virtual channels and offloads media processing to the endpoints.

"Since its launch earlier this year, the many innovations available in VMware Workspace ONE demonstrate VMware's momentum in this category and the strong customer adoption is evidence of its ability to address real-world problems," said Sanjay Poonen, executive vice president and general manager, End-User Computing and head of global marketing and communications, VMware. "Continuing down this path, we are also excited about our continued partnership with Microsoft that showcases the technology preview of Skype for Business with Horizon. This is a critical part of the Workspace ONE platform that will enable customers to optimize the delivery and use of their industry leading collaboration software on any device."

New VMware Workspace ONE Essentials and Digital Workspace Innovations

Companies are turning to Workspace ONE to power their digital transformations and Workspace ONE Essentials is a new edition for companies that have implemented a bring-your-own (BYO) initiative and enables unmanaged devices to access business applications and services through an identity-defined workspace. The solution includes user authentication and an application catalogue so IT administrators can have control and visibility into the access of business applications for enterprise security. End-users benefit from consumer simplicity with unified access to all approved business resources needed for productivity, application self-service, and SSO using any device or platform. End-users benefit from consumer simplicity with unified access to all approved business resources needed for productivity, application self-service, and SSO using any device or platform.

Combined with the existing Workspace ONE solution portfolio, companies can now deploy a company-wide digital workspace strategy using a solution that can extend to all user types and use cases using Workspace ONE. VMware continues to innovate Workspace ONE with new data loss prevention (DLP) capabilities to prevent Office 365 applications from being linked to personal online file sharing services. The Workspace ONE policy engine enables the use of personal file sharing applications for personal files and containerizes work applications such as Office 365. This capability will enable organizations to deploy Office 365 securely and integrate it with other applications and services approved for corporate use while keeping files and data within the corporate container on the device.

Lastly, VMware and F5 Networks have collaborated to enable SSO to all existing enterprise web applications including ones that do not support security assertion markup language (SAML). This is delivered through the F5 Networks BIG-IP platform on Workspace ONE. This expands the SSO capabilities already in Workspace ONE and broadens the range of applications that can be made available in the digital workspace (web, mobile, SaaS, modern and legacy Windows) to enhance the end-user experience.

Collaboration with Microsoft to Deliver Optimized Skype for Business Experience in Horizon

VMware will demonstrate a technology preview during the general session at VMworld that showcases VMware and Microsoft collaborating to enhance the Microsoft Skype for Business experience in Horizon virtual desktops and published applications. The solution will create a direct peer-to-peer endpoint virtual channel and offloads media processing to the endpoints, resulting in an improved end-user experience while reducing the strain on datacenter infrastructure. In general, the use of Skype for Business in a virtual desktop offers secure collaboration to keep corporate data secure in the datacenter and prevent data leakage. It also offers simple management with greater visibility, policy management and control through centralized deployment and application updates. Lastly, it delivers a consistent end-user experience across any device and platform along with lower IT infrastructure costs.

"Microsoft and VMware have a long history of collaborating to bring modern desktop and application solutions to customers and those efforts continue with the technology preview of Skype for Business on Horizon 7," said Andrew Sinclair, general manager, Skype Marketing, Microsoft. "Microsoft providing Skype API's to VDI vendors such as VMware enables both companies to offer great Skype deployment options to their customers. Virtualization provides benefits such as secure collaboration by avoiding remote data loss, simplified desktop management, and a consistent experience for virtualized users."

Powering Digital Transformations

Lufthansa Cargo, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Deutsche Lufthansa AG, is an international air cargo company employing 450 crew members and serving 45 destinations worldwide. Lufthansa selected VMware Workspace ONE with AirWatch for compliance enforcement, mobile device management, and application management and delivery to support a move to Apple iPads for a modern electronic flight bag (EFB) approach to eliminate in-cockpit electronics. This greatly reduced cockpit weight, shortened approval cycles for new technologies, and increased fuel efficiency. It also enabled Lufthansa to quickly provide new updates, applications and approaches to employees.

Akademiska Hus is one of the largest real estate companies in Sweden with property in 16 cities and nearly 400 employees. Akademiska Hus wanted to create a mobile environment to enable employees to work from anywhere and a solution that would be a cost-effective and sustainable investment into the future. After realizing a return on investment from a deployment of VMware Horizon, Akademiska Hus decided to further its mobility efforts through the use of the entire VMware Workspace ONE platform and adopt a digital workspace that includes integrated device management, application delivery and identity management. As a result, the company benefited from greater availability of information for employees, longer lifespans for hardware, reduction of helpdesk tickets by 60 percent, and an improved end-user experience compared to the past, with faster delivery and consumption of services.

Sally Beauty Holdings, Inc. through its affiliates, is the world's largest distributor of professional beauty supplies. With more than 4,000 stores worldwide available to professional and non-professional beauty specialists, the company selected VMware Horizon to extend business resources to employees for secure, anytime, anywhere access to enable greater agility and productivity using any device. Sally Beauty is evolving from a traditional brick-and-mortar company to becoming increasingly digital as employees and customers increasingly embrace mobile-cloud technologies.

Expanding the Digital Workspace Solution Portfolio

These announcements build on a list of industry-leading innovations to Workspace ONE and AirWatch introduced at Connect Atlanta 2016. Altogether, these innovations showcase VMware's expanding solution portfolio that can support efforts to modernize end-user computing and technology leadership in powering digital transformations. Announcements made at Connect Atlanta included:

· VMware AirWatch 9.0 and the new VMware AirWatch Unified Endpoint Management (UEM) solution

· A new VMware SysTrack Desktop Assessment Service for Windows 10 migrations

·Support for IoT devices, collaboration with leading smart glasses manufacturers and augmented reality application developers

·Updates to VMware Workspace ONE and new services to assist migration from traditional MDM vendors to VMware AirWatch

· VMware's vision to develop AirWatch into an analytics platform

· Addition of BlackBerry and SOTI to the AppConfig Community

· Collaboration between Symantec and VMware to deliver integrated approach to mobile threat defense and remediation with AirWatch