Soon after the acquisition of VMware AirWatch, VMware CEO Pat Gelsinger spoke at The Wall Street Journal CIO Network conference in 2014, and he said something that stuck with me ever since:
“If you don’t make that transition to be the leader inside of your organization of creating that mobile-cloud era, you’re just going to be a caretaker of the things of the past … this is the most traumatic period in the history of IT.”
Three short years later, the level of urgency has only accelerated. As customers take the journey to the mobile cloud, three of the biggest priority questions we consistently hear from IT organizations are:
- How do I shift my organization from being a cost center to a business driver?
- How do I provide better experiences for users and prevent shadow IT?
- How do I harden security while tackling an increasing number of threat vectors?
Dell and VMware are at the epicenter of this transformation with our customers, and we’ve been hard at work jointly engineering solutions to help customers execute on those three priorities.
Today, we’re introducing a unique Windows 10 provisioning service and adding several new levels of integration between modern endpoint management with VMware Workspace ONE and Dell device firmware-level settings through Dell Client Command Suite. These new solutions, available today, will save customers time and costs, deliver better user experiences and strengthen security and management capabilities.
New! Zero-Touch Windows 10 Provisioning
With traditional processes and tools, it can take weeks to image, configure and deliver a device for a user. It is extremely labor-intensive and expensive for IT and hinders end-user productivity.
We think there is a better way.
Windows 10 Provisioning powered by AirWatch enables IT to ship a device straight from the Dell factory with a pre-loaded AirWatch agent to an end user with zero IT touch. Once a user powers on the device for the first time and enters their corporate credentials, we configure the device over the air with all of the corporate policies, firmware-level and security settings and applications that user needs to do their job based on their role in the organization.
But wait, there’s more.
With the Workspace ONE “first launch” experience, we seamlessly guide the user through the applications and settings being applied to their device and get them productive in minutes.
We enable modern endpoint management with Workspace ONE, an integrated platform powered by AirWatch unified endpoint management (UEM) technology. In tandem with the cloud-based provisioning and configuration, Workspace ONE continues management of the device for patching, security and policy updates, and distributes any additional applications from IT or through the self-service app catalog with single sign-on into any native, Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) or remote application. This includes large Win32 applications (e.g. MSI, EXE, ZIP and more) optimized for distribution with content delivery network (CDN) and peer-to-peer distribution technologies.
Windows 10 Provisioning is a free service from Dell and requires a Workspace ONE or AirWatch license. The service works across Active Directory and Azure Active Directory environments and does not require any additional licensing.
Extending Modern PC Management to the Firmware Level
Earlier this year, we announced integration of industry-leading solutions Workspace ONE and Dell Client Command Suite client systems management tools. Today, we’re making an expanded set of capabilities available for IT to manage firmware-level settings from the cloud directly from the Workspace ONE console.
By working together, we give customers unique capabilities not otherwise possible. From a PC management perspective, no other provider of modern management tools (EMM or UEM) can extend management beyond the operating system to the lower firmware level, and from a Dell Client Command Suite perspective, no other provider can easily configure or update firmware-level settings over the air on any network without expensive, third-party tools.
The added capabilities of the integration now enable control of power management, hardware reliability, asset management and security settings. The above graphic outlines the capabilities and benefits across each of these use cases.
As organizations embrace the mobile-cloud era, VMware and Dell are uniquely positioned to help IT bring value to their organization through modern tools and processes, deliver better experiences for users and harden the security of their overall endpoint fleet.
To learn more about how we’re working together, read the Dell press release.
