App portal The launch of the app portal addresses another key ambition of IGEL’s which is to accelerate the adoption of EUC by providing a more consumer-focused and intuitive experience. “The goal is to have the sort of self-service experience that you have on your phone,” explained Ayres. “Take the Uber app. If my company allows that, I could get it and put it on my device. There's a more consumer-like experience – it doesn't feel like you have to open up a ticket, that you're in a radically confined space.” Ayres expects the number of IGEL-validated apps on the portal, available for download at no extra cost, to increase quite rapidly into the hundreds as vendors see who is already in there and follow their lead. “The IGEL Ready technology partner programme is probably the best way to gauge likely numbers. We launched that in earnest in 2020 and there's 130 people in that programme today. I would expect to see the same fast scale-out that we saw on IGEL Ready, fuelled by vendors in the ecosystem seeing the rapid growth of IGEL OS and its availability via leading hardware companies. That's going to be the ultimate advertisement.” He adds that another great benefit of the app portal is that it removes some of the stratification of vendors that has built up over the years, opening things up to a wider community. “Some of IGEL Ready is a little bit architecture-based and some of the companies involved have long histories with IGEL, like Citrix and VMware and Microsoft. The app portal is great. It's a whole new dimension for us and is going to attract more vendors. It's our iTunes moment. Remember how many apps were in it when Steve Jobs announced it; I think there were like 15 or maybe 10.” Apps already or shortly to be available on the IGEL portal include the Microsoft Azure Virtual Desktop client, VMware Horizon client, Citrix Workspace app, Chromium Browser, Zoom Media Plugins for VDI, Citrix Workspace app, ControlUp, CUPS printing system, SafeSign identity client, SafeNet Authentication client, Cryptovision Scienterface, Windows 365 Cloud PC and RDP client, Cisco Webex and Cisco Jabber, 7signal, Cameyo, Cendio, deviceTRUST, Imprivata, Nutanix Frame, Tricerat and Vasion PrinterLogic. The app portal is one of IGEL’s new cloud services. Others include the IGEL Onboarding Service, which enables users to onboard, manage and update endpoints faster and more efficiently, and the IGEL Insight Service, which provides deeper insights into endpoint usage, security, status and the compliance of IGEL UMSmanaged endpoints. UMS 12 Underpinning IGEL COSMOS is the new IGEL Unified Management System 12 management and control console. UMS 12 provides a unified view across endpoints running either IGEL OS 11 or IGEL OS 12, giving customers the ability to migrate to COSMOS at their own speed, without the need to upgrade all their existing devices to the new OS. Ayres is confident that with these building blocks in place, IGEL can devote more of its energies to developing innovative solutions that meet the needs of specific vertical sectors. “With that app portal and the onboarding and everything working together, we can start to do what development should be doing, which is thinking about the next generation of innovation, rather than trying to crochet a bunch of drivers into a piece of firmware.” www.igel.com/cosmos “Today’s workspaces are hybrid – hybrid work, hybrid clouds and hybrid applications. While VDI and DaaS continue to offer organisations the safest way to deliver secure access to Windows client server applications, a transition to SaaS and web-based applications has already started. IT organisations need to make sure they can evolve at their optimal pace and at the same time enable employees to have seamless yet secure access to their cloud workspaces. “The COSMOS platform has been designed for this new era of hybrid work. With a new modularised version of IGEL OS and a new version of our UMS management platform, coupled with new cloud services that extend capabilities and enhance user experiences, COSMOS delivers unmatched speed and flexibility across traditional and modern application delivery models, while retaining security, management and control across the entire endpoint estate.” Matthias Haas, Chief Technology Officer, IGEL 01732 759725 29 magazine
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