VMware on Tuesday announced a series of updates to Workspace One, its digital workspace platform, that focus on improving employee engagement and productivity while maintaining a high level of security. Among the updates, Workspace One now offers ways for new employees to securely access company resources from the moment they’re hired.
“For too long, enterprise security and digital employee experience have been pitted against one another,” Shankar Iyer, SVP and GM of End User Computing for VMware, said in a statement. “There is a common misconception that when efforts are made to strengthen one area, the other must ultimately suffer. This simply is not true.”
Building on the “digital concierge” services introduced to Workspace One earlier this year, VMware announced more features aimed at improving a new employee’s experience as they join a company. Using the platform’s Intelligent Hub, new hires will be able to securely access useful resources before their first day on the job, such as the company directory, intranet and benefits information. They’ll also be able to select technology to be delivered to them.
VMware also announced integrations between the Workspace One Intelligent Hub and HID Global, a company that makes secure identity products. The Intelligent Hub will offer a “Passport” feature to let employees use the app on their personal or company-owned device to gain entry into buildings. The feature will instantly verify an employee’s identity and access allowances.
Meanwhile, employees using Workspace One can now get more transparency into how their devices and apps are being managed with the new Privacy Guard feature in the Intelligent Hub. Employees can learn about the data that IT is collecting from their devices and apps, and they can gain visibility into the device permissions that are being requested by an application. Employees will get notifications when IT has changed any app or device management policies.
A few more security-related Workspace One updates:
- Emphasizing the zero-trust security model that Workspace One enables, VMware published a zero trust security architecture to help customers modernize their digital workspace security strategy. The architecture covers device management and compliance; conditional access; app tunnel and proxy; risk analytics; and automated remediation and orchestration.
- Multi-factor authentication is now built directly into the Workspace One Intelligent Hub app and Workspace One Access.
- VMware Workspace Security will bundle Workspace One Intelligence with Carbon Black Cloud Endpoint Advanced as an add-on service for Workspace One Advanced edition.
VMware on Tuesday also announced updates related to Horizon, VMware’s virtual desktop infrastructure (VDI) software. First, the Horizon Monitoring service is now generally available, available, enabling administrators to view Horizon performance data in a single console. Next, VMware said the Horizon Image Management service will enter beta testing phase in the fourth quarter of the fiscal year.