Were you one of the 1500+ people in the packed theater of the Digital Workspace Showcase Keynote at VMworld US? Or maybe you’re just now catching up with the recorded video?
The Digital Workspace Showcase Keynote featured the leaders, partners and customers of VMware’s End User Computing business that includes Workspace ONE, powered by AirWatch and Horizon. The latest product announcements were on full display with insightful demonstrations that displayed how a comprehensive digital workspace platform can give IT the freedom to empower employees and drive impactful business outcomes.
With so many new announcements, it’s easy to miss the key takeaways. Don’t worry, we have you covered.
We chatted with Noah Wasmer, SVP and Co-General Manager for VMware End User Computing, and Shankar Iyer, SVP and Co-General Manager for VMware End-User Computing, directly after the keynote get their hot take on the exciting updates and announcements.
Noah Wasmer – Top 3 VMworld 2018 Takeaways
Noah, when we talk about the journey to the Digital Workspace, what should CIO’s be thinking about today to make that transition easier and journey seamless for their end users?
Takeaway #1: Empower End-Users
There are three things we think are the imperatives we have to take on. First and foremost, empowering people to use the tools they love. It’s like going in and talking to a chef and saying you have to use these knives because this is what we have that’s cheap and available. That’s not the way it works here. We have to give people the tools, the resources, and the access to information that they need anywhere, anytime. We have the technology and tools today to really say anywhere access.
Takeaway #2: Support End-User Security and Privacy
The second thing is, when we think about the cost of traditionally managing a PC, it’s just going to continue to get more expensive. We know that there are iPhones, iPads, Androids, Samsung tablets, etc. Consumers love these devices, our employees love these devices. So, we have to create a model that says: Bring them, and we can support them…..
Takeaway #3: Intrinsic Security and Ruthless Automation
And last but not least, can we really improve security while reducing costs? And those are the two things that we think automation drives. As Pat said today, “Intrinsic security and ruthless automation”. Everything we showed today drives to those value propositions: how can we find ways to eliminate the mundane and make it simpler.
Shankar Iyer – Top 3 VMworld 2018 Takeaways
Shankar, what’s the key takeaway from the keynote? What do you want folks to remember?
Takeaway #1: Modern Management begins with the use case
The biggest takeaway is that customers have all these silos. They’re sitting on legacy technologies. What we brought together is the power of modern management, security updates, and the whole new era of experience that we can deliver using a single platform. So, we really focused on the end-user use cases.
We started off with the use cases on modern management. As Shawn Bass explained, we demoed Windows 10, but it’s equally applicable to other operating systems. How, through new processes, you can get rid of all the manual tasks, get rid of all the complexities, get rid of all the technologies, and fundamentally modernize the environment and automate it intelligently.
Takeaway #2: Desktop Virtualization gives you freedom through simplicity
What we saw in the world of desktop virtualization is the simplistic model; one you can truly deliver across hybrid models. Shikha Mittal showed the single control plane that can let you manage desktops regardless of whether they are on AWS, Azure, or On-Prem. When you saw how you can merge physical and virtual, that’s HUGE. Nobody in the industry has done that yet. Imagine managing your physical and virtual desktops through a single model. It gives you total freedom.
Takeaway #3: Focus on end-user experiences
Marshall Anne Busbee’s demo was fantastic. You re-focus your energy in IT on experience, because that’s ultimately what your CIO and your board will hold IT accountable for. But you cannot do that until you get the complexity out of the backend. So that’s we showed today, and we have customer’s adopting it. We hope many of our customers will embrace the platform and adopt these use cases to truly make their end-user computing environment modernized.
