Organizations of all sizes and industries are embracing workforce transformations. Today’s workforce is increasingly mobile, working from anywhere on a variety of device platforms and form factors, no matter whether a phone, tablet, or laptop. As such, incidents of user downtime and lost productivity can potentially cost companies millions of dollars a year in lost productivity and sales, as well as employee and customer dissatisfaction.
As businesses continue to embrace device heterogeneity and employees increasingly use multiple devices and business applications throughout the day, IT service desks face the challenge of providing cross-platform support for remote users when issues arise. These challenges are also significant for organizations managing purpose-built and ruggedized devices used in mission-critical operations out in the field, factory, warehouse or retail store. Given these trends, remote support capabilities are increasingly critical to successful workforce transformation initiatives and a key technical requirement for a digital workspace platform.
That is why I’m pleased to announce VMware’s intent to acquire AetherPal, a provider of remote support solutions that enable IT to remotely view, control, troubleshoot, and fix devices and applications in the field to improve productivity and efficiency, while reducing downtime.
Since May 2017, VMware has resold AetherPal’s Remote Support solution as an add-on to VMware Workspace ONE under the name Workspace ONE Advanced Remote Management, where it is being used by some of the largest device deployments in the world. Remote support capabilities are a high priority requirement for purpose-built and ruggedized devices that are used for specific jobs today – in warehouses, manufacturing facilities, retail stores, etc. When these devices have issues in the field, productivity is directly impacted and a fast and efficient response from IT is vital.
As more business-critical applications and workflows move to new form factors and locations outside the office, remote support technology will likewise become a high priority requirement for supporting employees across all businesses.
Increasingly, customers are expanding usage of remote support technology to their heterogeneous device fleets to further decrease time-consuming support efforts, eliminate site visits, and decrease device returns in the field or office. For telco operators and device hardware manufacturers that support thousands or even millions of business customers and consumers, the need for remote support technologies is even more profound.
VMware is committed to supporting customers with a unified digital workspace platform approach to drive significant time and cost savings for IT, improve security, and provide the best employee experience. Upon close, AetherPal’s modern approach to enabling remote support will add to the intelligence-driven Workspace ONE platform by being able to provide customers with the following capabilities:
- Remotely connect to any device in seconds from the Workspace ONE console using any web browser
- View any device screen in real-time, as if it were in your hand, or through a computer’s controls and keyboard
- Resolve problems faster with immediate visibility into key device information, including hardware information, OS information, memory, storage, diagnostics, network information, and more
- Retrieve and distribute files to remote devices to retrieve logs and update configurations
- Maintain user privacy and control, while enabling remote support from enterprise IT
Remote support is a critical need for our customers and a differentiator for the Workspace ONE platform. Our vision is to expand remote support to additional operating systems and use cases to further drive IT cost savings, increase security, and enable great user experiences.
We are excited that AetherPal’s employees will join our End User Computing team upon close. In addition, we look forward to welcoming AetherPal’s enterprise and carrier customers to the VMware family and continuing to support their users.
For another perspective, please read the blog by Shekar Ayyar.
Forward-Looking Statements
This blog contains forward-looking statements including, among other things, statements regarding VMware’s intention to acquire AetherPal; the expected benefits of the acquisition; and the expected complementary nature and strategic advantages of combined offerings after close. These forward-looking statements are subject to the safe harbor provisions created by the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Actual results could differ materially from those projected in the forward-looking statements as a result of certain risk factors, including but not limited to: (i) the ability of the parties to satisfy closing conditions to the acquisition on a timely basis or at all; (ii) market conditions, regulatory requirements and other corporate considerations that could affect the timing and closing conditions to the acquisition; (iii) the ability to successfully integrate acquired companies and assets into VMware; (iv) VMware’s customers’ ability to accept emerging technology and to transition to new products and computing strategies; (v) competitive factors, including but not limited to entry of new competitors into the industries in which VMware competes, and new product and marketing initiatives by VMware’s competitors; (vi) VMware’s ability to enter into and maintain strategically effective partnerships; (vii) rapid technological changes in the virtualization software and cloud, end user and mobile computing industries; (viii) changes to product and service development timelines; (ix) VMware’s ability to protect its proprietary technology; (x) VMware’s ability to attract and retain highly qualified employees; (xi) adverse changes in general economic or market conditions; (xii) changes in VMware’s financial condition; and (xiii) VMware’s relationship with Dell Technologies and Dell’s ability to control matters requiring stockholder approval. These forward-looking statements are made as of the date of this blog, are based on current expectations and are subject to uncertainties and changes in condition, significance, value and effect as well as other risks detailed in documents filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission, including VMware’s most recent reports on Form 10-K and Form 10-Q and current reports on Form 8-K that we may file from time to time, which could cause actual results to vary from expectations. VMware assumes no obligation to, and does not currently intend to, update any such forward-looking statements after the date of this release.
