By Ben Goodman, senior product marketing manager, End-User Computing, VMware
It’s hard to believe it was just a year ago, at VMworld 2010 in San Francisco, we first unveiled Project Horizon. At the same time, we unveiled our vision for the post-PC era. We shared our view, that the world was not just Windows anymore, and that a new way to work was emerging.
We’ve spent the last year executing on that vision. In May, we shipped Horizon Application Manager. At that time Horizon Application Manager enabled IT to maintain the on-premise security of their organization’s existing Active Directory credentials to the cloud.
End-users gained access, via single-sign-on, to a personalized workspace that brokered secure access all of the cloud and SaaS applications. While IT gained the ability to manage and quickly entitle applications to user or groups.
Now Virtualized Windows Apps!
At VMworld 2011 we are going even further! New updates to VMware Horizon extend the benefits of its identity, policy and entitlement engine to virtualized Windows applications – providing an open, user-centric platform for delivery of different application types within a unified application catalog from a wide range of devices.
We’ve updated Horizon Application Manager so that it can quickly discover and aggregate Windows applications virtualized with VMware ThinApp. Once aggregated, IT admins use Horizon Application Manager to deliver and manage virtual Windows apps together with cloud/SaaS apps as part of Horizon’s unified application catalog.
It is that simple – all of a users Windows apps and cloud/SaaS apps in one place, where and when they need it.
Horizon now lets IT admins manage the availability of almost any cloud application and ThinApp virtualized Windows application from a single console. User access is controlled by IT via strong policy management that delivers real-time application usage data for unprecedented operational visibility and license management.
Horizon Mobile – The New Sexy
But that is not all we have in store for you. At VMworld we are also announcing that we have extended Horizon’s management capabilities beyond Windows and cloud applications… way beyond the desktop.
Welcome VMware Horizon Mobile. Based on the VMware Mobile Virtualization Platform (MVP) technology previewed earlier this year at Mobile World Congress, VMware Horizon Mobile will offer new features that enable an enterprise to establish and securely manage an employee’s connected mobile workspace in isolation from their personal mobile environment. As a result, employees will gain the freedom to choose a single Android device for both personal and work use.
As a result, users gain the freedom to choose a single Android device for both personal and work use.
Gone are the days of caring around two cell phones – a phone for work and a phone for personal use. This cool info graphic provides a great look at the current state of mobile device trends in the enterprise. In a nutshell… the world was not just Windows anymore. And VMware has a way for IT to embrace this new way to work.
We‘re very excited to let you know about what we have been working on and think that you will agree these updates represent the next steps towards extending your enterprise to the horizon. We look forward to working with you on this journey.
Read more about VMware Horizon in the Horizon Media Backgrounder found here. Screen shots for Horizon Application Manager can be accessed here. While Screen shots for Horizon Mobile are here.
