Cloud infrastructure provider VMware has outlined its vision for the future of business mobility with new solutions, services and partnerships to enable organisations to transform business processes.
The company's strategy aims to free businesses from more than a decade of client-server focused IT - which enabled mobile access to a limited number of productivity applications - and now deliver a more user- and application-centric experience for the enterprise.
“Business Mobility is more than a shift in technology; it is an opportunity for true business process transformation,” says Sanjay Poonen, executive vice president and general manager, End-User Computing, VMware.
“Business Mobility will be a key driver of economic value for the next decade - truly reorienting businesses around mobile innovation, apps and services.
“As a result, the adage 'adapt or perish' has never been truer than it is today.”
More than ever, Poonen says enterprises are dealing with two fundamental pain points - providing secure identity and access to an increasingly mobile workforce, and managing the growing diversity of applications, data and devices.
These trends are breaking traditional IT; causing network access security controls designed for the Client-Server Era, to no longer meet needs of the Mobile-Cloud Era.
With IT having little to no control over an employee's choice of endpoint operating systems, Poonen cites the need to manage employee identity is a foundational element for enabling Business Mobility.
“For Employees, this means having a unified experience across all of their devices, while having ubiquitous access to all of their applications, content and services,” he explains.
“For Businesses (and lines of business), this means having an environment that can do much more than just enhance individual productivity.
“And for IT organisations, this means that the requirements for security, management and networking are changing. Identity and device management must now come together.”
Business Mobility
Examining the business impact and organisational attitudes toward Business Mobility, a February 2015 report by Forrester Research found that;
”If you limit the view of enterprise mobility to bring your own devices (BYOD) or apps, you're missing out on the bigger opportunity of enabling the people in your workforce to make the most of their mobile moments.
”Enhance interactions with customers and colleagues to help employees take direct action and get things done wherever they are.”
Revealed by Poonen, VMware Identity Manager aims to deliver the industry's first Identity-as-a-Service (IDaaS) offering integrated with enterprise-class mobility management and security solutions.
“VMware Identity Manager enables enterprise identity management that meets consumer-grade expectations with secure, one-touch access to web, mobile and Windows applications,” Poonen explains.
Offered as a cloud service or as an on-premises solution, Poonen says VMware Identity Manager enables organisations to “empower employees” to become productive quickly with a self-service application store, which provides a delightful end-user experience.
“IT gains a central place to manage end-user provisioning, access and compliance, with enterprise-class directory integration, identity federation and user analytics.”
iOS in the Enterprise
Currently supporting Apple iOS and devices through its VMware Horizon and AirWatch by VMware product portfolios, VMware also announced that it is furthering its commitment to Apple and the iOS platform.
According to Poonen, this is through the development of application configuration templates and vertical solutions, in industries like healthcare, airlines, education and others.
“This will provide users a "single-touch" configured solution, for a wide variety of apps, and facilitate faster on-boarding of mobile devices in the enterprise,” he adds.
