By Ben Goodman, Lead Evangelist for Horizon, End-User Computing, VMware
The IT world never stands still. External forces are always conspiring to ensure that change is the only constant for IT organizations.
It seems like just yesterday that IT spent most of its time focusing on only managing – employees. IT supported desktops that were owned by the company and were running company owned software. Those desktops traversed company-owned networks to company-developed applications, running on a company-owned server in a datacenter owned and operated at the company. It was in this more centralized world where IT often had to implement unwieldy tools that were predicated on control and management through ownership. But departments, end users and many use cases were often underserved. (See blog: What Rogue Users and Cloud Services Can Teach IT)
Today IT lives in a world where end users are more diverse, spanning from employees to contractors or outsourcers, partners, customers, students and citizens. Their devices are no longer just Windows PCs, but include thin clients, ultrabooks, tablets and smartphones running a variety of operating systems; some owned by the company and others by the user. These devices may be on the corporate network, but are also running on 3G, 4G LTE, public and private WiFi systems as end users access their applications, which include software that isn’t company owned, such as applications run in the cloud as a software as a service or those downloaded from an “App Store”. (See Blog The Accelerating Rise of Rogue Clouds.)
The way we work today means an era of mobility like nothing seen before. We expect that many of you are reading this blog from home or on one of your personal mobile devices. According to IDC 52% of workers use up to three devices or more. With this explosive growth it’s no wonder organizations are looking for cost effective yet productive solutions.
To address the growing complexity of mixed asset ownership, lessened IT control and increased end-user expectations, VMware introduces VMware® Horizon™ Workspace. Horizon Workspace brings together Application, Data and Mobile into a single product.
Horizon Workspace is part of the Horizon family of products as outlined by our EUC CTO, Scott Davis in his blog, Broadening VMware’s EUC Horizons with Innovation. Horizon Workspace simplifies the end‐user experience and reduces IT costs by combining applications, data and virtual desktop access into a single, aggregated workspace, securely delivered on any device.
For the administrator, the result is simpler, centralized, policy‐based management. For the end user, this means freedom of mobility and a simplified experience: and anytime, anywhere access.
Our customers were loud and clear about what they wanted to help manage their end-user computing challenges. A single, integrated solution that allows their end users to get access to all of their applications regardless of type, all of their data regardless of where it came from and their virtual desktops accessible from any device on any network, anywhere in the world. They want their end users to have the best experience possible, an experience that includes single sign-on, and one which obfuscates the complexity of the IT systems that they never need to be aware are running in the background.
Finally, they wanted to do this without investing in multiple point solutions that require time, effort and money to integrate. Avoiding this “point solution pile-up” was something we heard over and over again. Getting the entire solution from one vendor is only part of the equation. A single vendor solution consisting of complex, poorly integrated components requiring separate installs and management isn’t a solution. The benefits of buying that type of solution from a single vendor end at procurement and that just isn’t good enough anymore.
VMware is delivering the first integrated Multi-Device workspace so you no longer have to compromise. This proves that the greater collaboration and productivity end users want does not have to be mutually exclusive from the greater security and manageability that IT needs. Most importantly, you no longer have to settle for cobbling together point product solutions that result in greater complexity to manage, inconsistent experiences for users and ultimately fall short of the promises of integration
Welcome to the Multi-Device era as delivered by VMware. Welcome to Horizon Workspace.
