LAS VEGAS—VMware and Google revealed May 9 that they are expanding a relatively quiet partnership with the goal of accelerating the adoption of Chromebook laptops.
You didn’t know VMware was getting into the notebook business? You’re not the only one, although it does make a modicum of sense that the world’s virtualization king would get involved with a connected device that is devoid of a hard drive.
VMware Workspace ONE, introduced May 9 at Dell EMC World here at the Sands Conference Center, is designed to enable one-click secure authentication and management of applications–cloud, web and virtual–for organizations deploying Chromebooks.
This is a platform that device admins may appreciate because it unifies endpoint management for IT and provides a unified access experience for end users; this ostensibly helps organizations evolve away from siloed management point products.
There is a bit of business history between the two companies. Turns out that VMware has been working with Google for the last two years to secure Android devices and applications, most recently with advanced support for Android Enterprise.
Chrome OS provides multiple layers of protection including security modules, such as TPM (Trusted Platform Module)chips specialized for encryption, verified boot to check for compromises, sandboxing for containing threats and full-disk encryption for data protection. Together with Workspace ONE on Chromebooks, IT administrators are expected to see benefit from additional security capabilities to help deploy, configure and secure, web and SaaS applications.
VMware, which has been looking to participate in other markets for a couple of years, is also collaborating with Google to unify native Android applications. Windows applications can also be delivered through VMware Horizon 7 and VMware Horizon Cloud virtual applications and desktops, that can be accessed through dynamic contextual decision-making, secured in the data center and provisioned through Workspace ONE. This features single sign-on (SSO) to a digital workspace that includes a catalogue of all the business and productivity applications users need.
Workspace ONE with VMware AirWatch and Horizon support for Chromebook is available now.