Based on that idea, we formed the Digital Workspace Ecosystem Alliance (DWEA), and decided to specifically focus on educational content that would help everyone understand the digital workspace technology stack, learn from what their peers are doing, and learn how to evaluate which components of the digital workspace stack actually make sense for their organization’s specific needs. First we released the “Evaluating the Digital Workspace” white paper (which you can download here), and since then we’ve gone on to create all kinds of content including our first annual Digital Workspace Summit (you can access all sessions from the Summit on-demand here). 

Today we are excited to announce the results of the DWEA’s first annual survey in the form of our “State of the Digital Workspace 2023” report (download the full report for free here). The purpose of this survey was to identify how many organizations have a digital workspace strategy in place today, where they stand in executing those strategies, and the pain points/roadblocks they’ve experienced along the way. We also set out to determine if IT pros believe their strategies are paying off, or if they plan to course-correct in the future. The result is a roadmap for IT decision makers providing better insight into what’s working for their peers so they can make more informed decisions as they hone their own digital workspace strategies.

The Report Methodology, Size, and Geographic Breakdown

Back in September 2022, the DWEA introduced its first annual survey to gauge the current state of digital workspace adoption, benefits and challenges. The survey was completed by 2,660 digital workspace professionals globally, making it one of the largest digital workspace technology-focused surveys to date.

Rather than focusing on the location of the individual survey respondents (or the organizations they work for), this survey identified the geographic breakdown of the end-users that each survey respondent manages. This was done so that we could provide a better view of the modern remote & hybrid workforce. That geographic breakdown is as follows:

• 69% of respondents manage end-users in the Americas
• 30.5% of respondents manage end-users in EMEA
• 29.4% of respondents manage end-users in APAC

To read through the DWEA’s announcement/blog post about the report, which provides a broader overview of all of the findings, check out the post here. In this blog post, I plan to specifically hone in on some of the key issues relevant to anyone who is evaluating virtualization solutions – either for the first time, or (like many in the survey) to replace the legacy technologies they have in place to enable a more productive and secure digital workspace while dramatically reducing cost. 

The State of Remote & Hybrid, and the Murky Path Back to the Office

The results of the DWEA survey speak loud and clear: Supporting a hybrid and remote workforce continues to be a priority for a majority of organizations. More than 58% of DWEA survey respondents confirmed that they will offer their people the option to work either remotely or hybrid on a permanent basis. On the flip side of this is the nearly 42% of survey respondents who said that they expected all of their users to be back in the office full-time “at some point.” 

Although roughly 6 out of every 10 organizations are banking on remote/hybrid work for the long term, there’s an undeniable division of thinking when it comes to whether workforces will eventually make a wholesale return to the office. Those that have committed to hybrid and remote work will benefit from being able to build a digital workspace strategy accordingly. And they will almost certainly benefit from those actions being more in line with employees’ broad expectations of a remote work option.

For organizations that expect their people to be back in the office full-time at some point in the future, the roadmap to get there is murky. As a result, it will be vital for them to establish a sustainable and flexible digital workspace strategy that can support hybrid work right now and adapt over time. With the lesson of the pandemic still fresh in everyone’s mind, whatever strategy they adopt will have to allow them to respond to rapid and unforeseen shifts in workplace environments.

Legacy Technologies Are Holding Us Back

Another key finding of this survey is that legacy technology is a lingering hurdle that is preventing organizations’ full transition to a secure, productive digital workspace. This is worth exploring in its own right, given that VDI and legacy apps crop up as a sticking point throughout the DWEA survey.

When asked about the virtualization technologies they were utilizing to deliver cloud desktops to their users, more than half (51%) of the respondents stated that they were using VDI. However, close to half (48.2%) of the respondents also said that the “performance of the solution” was the chief problem with their virtual desktop environment. Another 41.7% cited cost as a major concern. These figures are a clear indication that legacy virtualization technology like VDI may still be relatively commonplace, but in many cases it is having a negative impact on productivity and budget.

In addition, 36.9% of respondents said that keeping applications up to date was a critical concern in their hybrid desktop environment. Another 21.4% cited the management of legacy applications as a key challenge. Since legacy apps are still critical to many organizations’ overall operations, this points to a need to offer legacy applications to users in a way that actually streamlines that overall management and distribution.

This combination of issues caused by legacy VDI technology and the need to give users access to all of their legacy applications might explain why we’ve seen such a spike in the adoption of Virtual App Delivery (VAD) technology. The DWEA survey revealed that 47.4% of respondents are utilizing VAD to deliver cloud desktops today. That number is up from the 32.4% who said they were using VAD in the 2021 “VDI Like a Pro” survey.

What’s more, the DWEA results confirm trends that were identified in that prior report. Of the respondents to the “VDI Like a Pro” survey, 17% of those who were using VDI at the time indicated that they would be making the shift from VDI to VAD within the next two years. With DWEA respondents reporting more than 47% VAD adoption just one year after the “VDI Like a Pro” survey, this predicted migration is already ahead of schedule.

So What’s Next?

Organizations seem to be taking a hard look at the legacy technology they have in place and asking themselves if it’s truly working for them. While there are still legacy apps that are vital to their workflow, other legacy software, like VDI, is not meeting expectations and needs to be supplanted. The question is, how can they streamline the management and delivery of legacy solutions they want to keep while seamlessly replacing the legacy solutions they want to eliminate?

Based on the DWEA survey results, organizations are increasingly finding the answer in Virtual App Delivery. The respondent breakdown (51% using VDI, 47% using VAD) shows that adoption of the two virtualization technologies is already close to parity, even though VDI has a multi-decade head start. When taking the 2021 “VDI Like a Pro” survey results into account, the roughly 15% year-on-year growth in VAD adoption is striking. That rapid uptake suggests that organizations are finding VAD to be more cost-effective, less complex and more capable than traditional virtualization methods.

If your organization is in a similar situation and you are looking for a modern, cloud-native alternative to your legacy VDI or DaaS solution, Cameyo can help. Check out our case studies to learn about other organizations (including Fortune 500 orgs) who have made the switch from VDI/DaaS to Cameyo’s VAD technology. Or if you’d like to see Cameyo in action and learn how it could simplify your virtualization environment while improving your user experience and reducing cost by up to 70% compared to VDI, go ahead and schedule a demo here. 

And don’t forget to get your free “State of the Digital Workspace 2023” report, which you can download directly from the Digital Workspace Ecosystem Alliance (DWEA) here. 

The post Introducing the State of the Digital Workspace 2023 Report appeared first on Cameyo.

In the past year, the DWEA has released our initial white paper – “Evaluating the Digital Workspace Ecosystem” (download available here) – which provides an actionable guide for reviewing and evaluating which digital workspace technologies make sense for your organization. And earlier this year we pulled together an all-star list of end-users to share their real-life stories of how they developed and executed their digital workspace strategies. All of those sessions from our inaugural Digital Workspace Summit are available on-demand here.

As you can see, the DWEA aims to keep it’s content focused on providing resources that can actually help you develop a digital workspace strategy that fits the specific needs of your organization. But a key part of providing the most useful tools to help people hone their strategies is identifying where organizations are in their digital workspace journeys today. Which is why we’re excited to launch our first bi-annual “State of the Digital Workspace” survey – which we’d like to invite you to complete before Wednesday, July 27th.

The survey takes roughly 7 minutes to complete, and as a thank you for participating and adding your voice to the survey, we will send you a free copy of the final report once it is completed in August. Also, you’ll be entered into a drawing to win one of five $100 (or local currency equivalent) gift cards. And if you are not able to accept a gift card, the DWEA will make a $100 donation to the non-profit of your choice instead. 

You may be wondering whether or not this is worth your time, and if you’ll gain any real insights from the data that we’ll be providing in our final report. As of 7/19, over 2,000 IT professionals have completed the survey, making this one of the digital workspace industry’s largest surveys to date (and we expect to hit over 3,000 responses by the time we close the survey next week). This is going to be an incredibly valuable dataset that will give you a solid picture of where your peers and other organizations are at in their digital workspace journey today. 

We look forward to sharing the results of this survey with you all in August – and to be the first to receive the results, please go and complete the survey here today! 

The post Introducing the “State of the Digital Workspace 2022” Survey appeared first on Cameyo.

As a result, there are entirely new needs and expectations that have been set over the past year with regards to how people access the applications and resources they need to be productive from anywhere. 

People in the end-user computing (EUC) market have been declaring that “this is the year of virtual desktop infrastructure (VDI)!” for many years now (here’s an article from 2010, and they haven’t stopped since). And the pandemic-driven increase in demand for VDI/DaaS in 2020 seemed like it would finally make that statement true. Or at least tee things up so that 2021 would be the tipping-point year for mass adoption.  

But then an issue emerged. VDI and DaaS made sense – fiscally and functionally – when organizations only needed to deploy them for a small percentage of highly-mobile road warriors or power users. But when the pandemic made everyone completely remote overnight, the expense and complexity of deploying VDI/DaaS at scale was too much for many organizations. 

The issue is that for so many years, people have been told that VDI was the future. But now that the future is here, applying VDI as a cure-all doesn’t always make sense based on the actual ways that people need to work. Some people absolutely require a full virtual desktop environment to do their job remotely, and for those people, VDI makes sense. But for most people in your organization, they likely only need access to the business-critical apps that they need to do their job and be productive, in which case VDI is overkill.

Which leads me to Lumière’s Law.

Lumière’s Law

In 1895, brothers Auguste and Louis Lumière introduced their Cinématographe motion picture system and shot the world’s first moving picture. After filming 10 moving pictures, the Lumière brothers began screening them for audiences around the world to gauge the reaction. Ultimately, the Lumières stopped making motion pictures and declared “The cinema is an invention without any future.” 

There’s a fantastic overview of Lumière’s Law in this video from The Loyalty Loop (starting at the 4:30 mark and going to the 9-minute mark or so), but here’s a quick rundown:

Even though they pioneered moving pictures, the Lumière brothers (whose previous business was photography) evaluated everything about the opportunity for moving pictures through the lens (no pun intended) of their extensive experience with photography. Thus, Lumière’s Law refers to our tendency to use previous media or innovations to define a new media – which is a big mistake. When defining a new media, one has to be open to a different mode of consumption for that media. Or, if referring to a general innovation, one must not assume that their new innovation can (or should) be applied to the same situations as innovations of the past. 

So, how does this apply to VDI?

VDI is a technology that has been around for 20+ years, and it was never designed to enable 100 percent of your people to work remotely 100 percent of the time. So it’s not fair to EXPECT it to be ideal for that scenario, because it was a different innovation built for a different time. 

Today, all of our people need access to secure Digital Workspaces so that they can continue to be productive from anywhere, anytime, and on any device. It would be a mistake to apply the current and future demands of remote and hybrid work (the “lens” of the pandemic and post-pandemic reality) to a technology that was built two decades before the current market needs existed. Also, the WAY that people work has changed, and most people don’t need access to a full virtual desktop environment to do their job. 

In this case, Lumière’s Law would refer to people’s tendency to want to use a previous innovation (VDI) to define a new medium – Digital Workspaces – which would be a mistake. 

Virtual Desktops/DaaS does not equal Digital Workspaces. And to be fair, Virtual App Delivery doesn’t equal Digital Workspaces, either. Both are often foundations and/or components of a Digital Workspace, but virtual access to a desktop or virtual access to apps is just part of a broader Digital Workspace mix. 

The Digital Workspace Stack

What that Digital Workspace mix should look like will be different for various organizations, but 2021 will be the year where you’ll see a lot of work done to define a core Digital Workspace “stack.” The goal here is to help organizations easily identify and select the components of the Digital Workspace stack that apply to their particular business needs. 

Stay tuned for a lot more on this topic coming from us (and others) soon. In the meantime, if you have any questions or would like to discuss how Cameyo can help you navigate this stack, please reach out to us here – and feel free to put “Digital Workspace Stack” in the field that asks what information you’re looking for.

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It’s clear that this shift has had huge implications for virtualization and digital workspaces. So here are three developments and lessons we learned in 2020 that will continue to have a major impact on business over the next eleven months.

Virtual desktops and virtual app delivery will coexist

As organizations start to adopt digital workspaces to enable permanent remote (or hybrid) work, many of them have come to realize that not every user needs a full-blown virtual desktop. What most users need is straightforward access to their business-critical apps. This is where virtual app delivery, a more streamlined productivity solution for those who don’t need full desktops, comes in.

Granted – this doesn’t mean every organization has to choose either virtual desktops or virtual app delivery. In keeping with the philosophy behind hybrid workplaces, 2021 will mark the year that organizations right-size their virtualization strategy with a balance of virtual desktops and virtual apps. We’ll begin seeing a move away from “one-size-fits-all” VDI solutions and instead toward more curated approaches.

In other words, the power users who need virtual desktops will still get them. But the much larger pool of users who are better suited to the flexibility and ease of virtual app delivery will get a solution tailored to their needs. This will help avoid a lot of the complexity and waste of overprovisioning.

Along with boosting users’ productivity, this right-sized approach has the potential to be easier to administer and more cost-effective. Those added benefits will prove to be further drivers of hybrid virtualization strategies.

Remote work has driven home the need for Zero Trust security

Zero trust security assumes that all access, even authorized access, is a potential risk. Unfortunately, this is something we’ve all come to better understand during the COVID-19 pandemic: Even the close friends and family members who we implicitly trust might be asymptomatic carriers of the virus.

In a world that has shifted to remote work, there’s a worrying parallel here between COVID-19 and VPNs. Using VPNs to give users unrestricted access without knowing whether or not their devices may be infected puts corporate networks and sensitive data at risk. 

For hackers, the growing number of work-from-home employees has been a dream come true. Instead of having to breach the multiple layers of enterprise-grade security on a corporate network, they can focus their attacks on individuals using poorly secured home networks. From there they can use the VPN to get an all-access pass to deliver a malicious payload behind the corporate firewall.

Previously, organizations only had to focus on 10% of their users being mobile. Today, that percentage has flipped completely. As many as 90% of users are outside the network. Hence the urgent need for the blanket skepticism that lies at the heart of zero trust security.

That’s why zero trust will see mainstream uptake in the coming months as IT departments move to mitigate the vulnerabilities introduced by a remote workforce—yet without hindering the productivity of those same users. Security-conscious organizations will embrace virtual app delivery and other digital workspace solutions that provide users with the tools they need while also limiting the exposure of the internal network. Moving beyond VPNs will be an important part of their overall efforts to shrink the attack surface.

There is no “new normal” – so flexibility is key

This is a theme I’ve covered in detail before. But it bears repeating, if only because the idea of the “new normal” became such an axiom in 2020.

The fact is, there is no new normal. To call something “normal” implies that it will be the same for nearly everyone, and that’s far from the truth when it comes to what tomorrow’s workplace will look like.

While some companies will continue to allow permanent remote work, some—such as Google—are going to be experimenting with ideas like the flexible workweek. Others are going to have a proportion of employees continue working remotely while the rest return to a traditional in-office workplace. JP Morgan, for example, estimates that 30% of its workforce will remain remote.

And in a lot of cases, these workplace arrangements are going to be shifting and changing in response to other events—not all of them pandemic-related. Even in a post-pandemic world, things will still be in flux for quite some time.

IT departments therefore need to prepare themselves for a shifting work environment in 2021 as well as the years to come. The only certainty, as the saying goes, is uncertainty. So they’ll have to put a premium on agility, ensuring that they have systems and solutions in place to ensure people can be productive from anywhere as the situation changes. Digital workspaces and right-sized virtualization strategies, as noted above, will hold the answers to many of those unknowns.

Remote Anticipate a Changing Workplace, Prepare with a Digital Workspace

Steve Jobs was fond of saying that hockey superstar Wayne Gretzky always skated to where the puck was going to be, not where it had been. With these three lessons from 2020 in mind, your organization can better anticipate imminent changes in the workplace before it evolves yet again in 2021 and leaves you scrambling to catch up.

The post 3 Lessons from 2020 that are Impacting Business in 2021 appeared first on Cameyo.

Obviously, there are many technologies on the market. But to make things even more challenging, It can be difficult to differentiate between the various terms and technologies used to describe these various technologies.  For instance, what’s the difference between Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI), Desktop-as-a-Service (DaaS), and Virtual App Delivery?  And what role does each of these technologies play in the overall “Digital Workspaces” category? Also – whatever happened to “Application Virtualization”, and is that the same as “Virtual App Delivery”? 

Let’s take a closer look at these different technologies to compare and contrast their capabilities, and to shed some light on how we got to the current Digital Workspace stack.

Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI), Desktop-as-a-Service (DaaS), and Virtual App Delivery

Many organizations today are using Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI) to deliver business-critical resources to remote workers.  It is a popular option. However, it can be both challenging and costly to implement.  First of all, what is VDI?  In general, it refers to solutions that pool together desktop resources on a centralized server and deliver these to end-users.  The end-user is then able to access the full desktop and run applications, and access data.  VDI is a pre-cloud technology that businesses generally deploy in on-premises environments.     

Citrix Workspaces and VMware Horizon are two of the major players in this space, and many organizations choose solutions from these solutions to deliver VDI in their environment.  What are the challenges with VDI?  VDI is notoriously expensive and resource-hungry.  It usually requires a dedicated set of servers, storage, and network infrastructure to deliver virtual desktops to end-users in a performant way.

To go along with the dedicated servers, storage, and network infrastructure, organizations generally have to hire at least one or two engineers who specialize in VDI to manage, configure, and troubleshoot the environment daily.  The ongoing costs of both dedicated hardware and a team of professionals to manage and maintain the VDI environment can add up.

There have been efforts to overcome challenges and costs with managing an on-premises VDI environment, such as Desktop-as-a-Service (DaaS).  With DaaS, the hope is to abstract some of the complexity by shifting the underlying infrastructure to cloud environments so organizations can operate the VDI offering as a service and not deal with the infrastructure side of things.  However, DaaS still requires the cloud expertise to deliver the solution, and the underlying complexity is still there.  It can also lead to costly spending on cloud services.

Which leads to another key technology in the Digital Workspace stack – Virtual App Delivery.  When businesses start to look at what is most important to enable anytime, anywhere productivity for remote end-users, it is generally the applications.  When connecting to VDI or DaaS environments, many remote workers are simply accessing business-critical applications and not interacting with the desktop environment for other reasons. In those cases, VDI/DaaS are overkill, and both the IT environment and the user experience can be simplified with Virtual App Delivery. But it’s important to note that it’s usually not an either/or proposition – in many organizations IT can utilize VDI/DaaS for the users who truly need a full virtual desktop, and then utilize Virtual App Delivery for everyone else. 

But Wait – What About Application Virtualization? 

The concept that not every user needs a desktop is not new.  Application virtualization first emerged many years ago to address this issue, and to provide a simpler way to just provide apps instead of full virtual desktops. App virtualization has been around for a while on many different platforms, such as Microsoft Remote Desktop Services, with the aim of providing a more efficient approach to delivering applications to the end-user without the full desktop.  App virtualization provides a more efficient footprint and is capable of greater user density per server resource. However, the App Virtualization approach generally requires the same infrastructure configuration whether full desktops are delivered or not.  Below is Microsoft’s architecture overview of Remote Desktop Services, housed in Azure.  There are many moving parts and components, including Remote Desktop Gateway, Remote Desktop Web Services, Remote Desktop Session Host, Active Directory, File services, etc.  

Virtual App Delivery  vs. App Virtualization

So, what’s the difference between Application Virtualization and Virtual App Delivery? Think of Virtual App Delivery as the next-generation of App Virtualization. Virtual App Delivery is the cloud-native approach designed to address the challenges and hurdles of legacy App Virtualization by automating away all of the complexity seen in the diagram above.  A modern Virtual App Delivery platform should display the following three key characteristics:

• Simplicity
• Seamless Connectivity
• Intrinsic Security

Simplicity

App virtualization products require the same infrastructure needed for full virtual desktops.  It results in unnecessary complexity from an architectural perspective and requires numerous components to ensure the solution is reachable, highly-available, and secure.  The term Virtual App Delivery emphasizes the importance of the delivery of the application to the end-user.  The delivery must be seamless and straightforward, as we will see.  

Seamless Connectivity

With the tremendous transition to remote work in 2020 and continuing this year, employees continue to work from many different locations.  They use many types of devices to access business-critical applications and data.  However, there is generally one type of access that all devices, both traditional and mobile, have in common – a browser.  Modern Virtual App Delivery solutions must provide seamless connectivity to all of the applications people need to be productive from anywhere and on any device through an HTML5 browser.  This eliminates the requirement for a “fat” client and allows fully encrypted sessions through SSL encryption. 

Intrinsic Security

Cybersecurity has never been more critical than it is today.  With record numbers of cyberattacks and new threat vectors popping up each day, today’s digital workspaces using Virtual App Delivery must deliver security intrinsically as part of the solution.  With traditional remote access and app virtualization solutions, security is an afterthought or a “bolt-on” component.  This approach is no longer sufficient, so it’s important to ensure that any Virtual App Delivery solution you’re evaluating has security built in at the very foundation. 

Cameyo Modern Virtual App Delivery

There’s no question that today’s employees need to access business applications from anywhere and on any device.  Cameyo’s Virtual App Delivery platform provides a robust Digital Workspace that delivers virtual apps to remote workers with simplicity, seamless connectivity, and security.

Simplicity

Unlike legacy application virtualization solutions, Cameyo is purpose-built and engineered for modern Virtual App Delivery.  It means there are no unnecessary architectural components in the way of servers, storage, or networking required.  It eliminates the cost and management complexity involved in managing VDI and DaaS and other legacy application virtualization solutions.   

Customers who choose the on-premises solution can use a single Cameyo execution server on-premises (two recommended).  For those who want to use Cameyo as a Cloud SaaS offering, Cameyo offers a fully-managed customer cloud environment for hosting applications.

The Cameyo Virtual App Delivery solution architecture is straightforward: 

• The end-user requests to initiate an application by invoking a “play” action URL from the Portal in the form of: https://online.cameyo.com/apps/1234…./play. This can also be invoked through a Cameyo API.
• Portal checks the user’s authentication for this application. If authentication is required but missing, the portal authenticates the user either through login credentials or the configured SSO provider. SSO can be any OIDC-compliant provider, including Azure AD, Google, Okta, Ping, etc.
• The Cameyo cloud portal communicates with Cameyo “execution” Servers, which deliver applications to end-users
• The Cameyo execution server responds to the portal with the connection details. The portal translates them to the client:
  • HTML5 client: user’s browser is forwarded directly to the server’s HTTP/S address with a given token. The execution server then verifies that token against the portal.
  • Native Windows / Android RDP clients: connection is made directly through RDP, using one-time credentials generated on-the-fly and transmitted to the client.
• The session runs according to Cameyo’s policy settings such as maximum time / idle time, cloud storage virtualization/synchronization, shell lockdown, toolbar options, file transfer permissions, etc.
• Upon the session’s end, the user profile is cleaned up. If Cameyo is configured to “Temporary User Profiles,” the entire user profile data is wiped out of the server. If SessionSync is enabled, this is done after synchronizing the user’s data back to the central / cloud storage.

Cameyo Virtual App Delivery Architecture Overview

Seamless Connectivity

Cameyo provides seamless connectivity to all Windows and internal web applications from any device.  Customers’ end-users only have to have access to a browser to run the full desktop of any application from their browser with Cameyo.  This means end users have nothing new to learn – they simply access the applications they’e always utilized, just via a browser tab instead of an installed app. 

Intrinsic Security

Cameyo is built with a zero-trust security model from the ground up.  Cameyo never exposes the execution server to the public-facing Internet.  Using its unique RDP and HTTP/S Port Shield technology, only authenticated sessions can communicate with RDP and HTTP/S ports on Cameyo servers.  Once authenticated, end-users only have access to the sanctioned applications and never to the core system components.  Additionally, when a user logs off, Cameyo Port Shield removes the end-users’ IP address from accessing the Cameyo server at a network layer.   

The intrinsic security provided by Cameyo allows organizations to provide access to business-critical applications on any device, even non-IT managed personal devices, without the danger of data leakage, malware, or other compromising behaviors.

Final Thoughts

The way we live, socialize, and work are continuing to change.  Businesses are rethinking their remote employees’ workflows and figuring out how to ensure all of their people can access the business-critical apps they need to do their jobs from anywhere and on any device.  There are many different solutions for providing remote access to employees, including Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI) and Desktop-as-a-Service (DaaS) – but for the majority of the workforce who simply need access to their business applications, Virtual App Delivery is simpler, more cost effective, and more secure. Rather than providing a full desktop, only the necessary applications are presented to the end-user.

Whereas Application Virtualization first emerged to highlight the need for delivering apps instead of full virtual desktops, Virtual App Delivery is the modern, cloud-native approach that enables the delivery of apps without the complex infrastructure requirements of VDI/DaaS & App Virtualization.  It helps to overcome traditional application virtualization challenges by providing simple, seamless, and secure access.  Cameyo delivers modern Virtual App Delivery without unneeded infrastructure, using a simple SSL browser connection and zero trust security mechanisms to ensure your data and applications remain safe no matter what devices your people are utilizing.    

Want to try it for yourself? You can be up and running with Cameyo in minutes – just start your free trial below. 

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The post The Evolution from Application Virtualization to Digital Workspaces appeared first on Cameyo.

Throughout that major paradigm shift, Cameyo’s Digital Workspace has been empowering customers across all industries to support greater numbers of remote workers with far less effort. That’s because our virtual application delivery platform is incredibly versatile. Its ease of deployment and ability to deliver apps to any HTML5 browser can breathe new life into legacy or specialized software. At the same time, there’s practically zero learning curve for end users, so they can start using it immediately.

Cameyo also prioritizes security. By avoiding the pitfalls of VPNs and making it far simpler and more secure for authorized users to access the software they need, our Digital Workspace solution provides flexibility and mobility while reducing your potential attack surface.

Here are a few customer examples across a variety of industries to help illustrate how Cameyo is being utilized to simply & securely deliver business-critical Windows & web apps to any device, from the browser. 

Enterprise

Nordward is a coalition of four leading companies in Sweden, Denmark and Norway. Together they form a major regional distributor of fresh fish, seafood and Asian food products throughout Scandinavia.

After underwhelming results with conventional VDI solutions, the organization used Cameyo in conjunction with Neverware’s CloudReady to facilitate its transition from Windows to Chrome OS without having to sacrifice its Windows-based ERP system, VismaBusiness. Wherever they are, Nordward employees can now access VismaBusiness through their browsers.

What this means is that the vital aspects of Nordward’s business—things like purchasing, warehousing, logistics, sales and finance—remained the same even as the organization migrated to a more scalable, cost-effective OS. The result has been increased ease of administration, a seamless user experience and clear cost savings.

According to Christian Ahlin, Group Head of IT at Nordward: “Cameyo played a critical role in enabling our transition to Chrome Enterprise. Without the ability to provide access to our Windows ERP software on Chrome OS devices, we simply would not have been able to make the switch.”

Read the full Nordward case study here.

Education

Baldwinsville Central School District serves over 5,500 students in upstate New York. As has been the case for many educational organizations, the COVID-19 pandemic rapidly accelerated the district’s adoption of a hybrid distance learning model. 

The district did briefly consider its previous solution, VMware Horizon 7. But that was difficult to manage, required expensive infrastructure and wouldn’t have offered the optimal user experience the students needed.

With Cameyo, said Baldwinsville network administrator Jim Cerio, “[o]ur students get to use the full desktop version of the software that they’re already used to, without having to learn anything new. It simply opens up in a browser tab instead of being locally installed on the device.”

Compared to VMware, Cameyo is saving the district $50,0000 per year in just licensing fees alone.

And Baldwinsville certainly isn’t the only school district that has leveraged Cameyo’s Digital Workspace solution during the pandemic to great effect. During a 30-day period in September 2020, we helped 34 school districts transition effortlessly to a distance/remote learning model. Two months later, a further 16 districts had started using Cameyo.

Read the full Baldwinsville case study here.

Independent Software Vendors (ISVs)

Even independent software vendors (ISVs) need a helping hand every now and then. Tático ERP is a leading enterprise resource planning (ERP) platform provider in Brazil. It offers a suite of integrated applications for managing financials, contracts, CRM as well as many other essential back-office functions.

Tático ERP noticed that more and more of its customers had begun using non-Windows platforms. They were also asking for modern, web-enabled software that didn’t have to be physically installed on local devices. Faced with the prospect of redeveloping the ERP solution (at a cost of $2 million and an 18-month timeline) or struggling with the complexity, cost and inferior user experience of Citrix, Tático chose Cameyo instead.

“When we first saw Cameyo in action, we quickly realized that our users wouldn’t have to download, install or manage anything in order to use our suite,” said Henrique Netzka, Tático’s CEO. “It was like a dream come true. Our users would get the same exact experience as the installed version of the software, but on any device, without having to install anything.”

In using Cameyo to modernize its ERP software suite, Tático’s has opened up new markets for itself. Its solution is now accessible from tablets, Chromebooks, Macs and other devices without having to invest in a costly, time-consuming and unpredictable redevelopment initiative. Through Cameyo, the company broadened its business model almost overnight.

Read the full Tático case study here.

Retail

Ur&Penn has been a leading watch and jewelry retailer throughout Sweden since 1943. Today it operates 126 retail stores throughout its native Sweden as well as Finland.

As part of a recent streamlining effort, the company planned to migrate users at its corporate headquarters from Windows PCs to more cost-effective Chromebooks. Unfortunately, a handful of legacy Windows applications threatened to derail the move. 

Nutanix’s Xi Frame was brought in as a potential solution, but “we realized quickly that Xi Frame’s architecture requires one server for each and every user. So right away, this became an incredibly costly solution, according Ur&Penn CIO Emir Saffar. A second solution, Citrix XenApp, caused users to experience continual login issues and required a disproportionate investment of admin resources.

“Unlike Nutanix Xi Frame and Citrix XenApp, there is no complicated infrastructure to deploy and manage. Not only were we up and running with Cameyo in less than three hours, but we can also deploy new apps almost instantly. We never have to re-image or deal with a Golden Image. Cameyo could not be easier,” Saffar said. 

With Cameyo’s Digital Workspace, Ur&Penn was also able to transition quickly to a work-from-home model when COVID-19 arose. Even staff members working in London and New York could access essential Windows applications on their Chromebooks with speed and security.

Read the full Ur&Penn case study here.

Your organization can benefit from Cameyo too

No matter how niche or broad your field of operations might be, Cameyo’s Digital Workspace can help your organization empower remote workers, enable distance learners, or modernize your legacy software to expand your customer base.

Start your free trial of Cameyo today and join the 300+ (and growing rapidly) organizations across industries that are now benefitting from the scalability, cost savings and security of Cameyo’s Digital Workspace platform.

The post Cameyo Enables Secure Remote Work for Customers Across Industries appeared first on Cameyo.

Hopefully you find this helpful, and if so, please share. And ping us anytime on LinkedIn or Twitter to share any articles you found particularly interesting this week. 

With that, here’s This Week in Remote Work:

1) Survey Results: 14 VC & Founder Predictions for 2021 (from VC firm NfX)

In December, VC firm NFX surveyed 526 founders & investors in the startup community for their thoughts on the top trends for 2021. There are a lot of interesting trends and predictions covered throughout the report, but right off the bat at #1 is that “Founders Predict Remote Work Will Be The Hottest Growth Sector In 2021.”

Prediction #7 also jumped out at me, showing the change in opinion that companies have when it comes to hiring remote talent. The article sites unfavorable opinion of hiring remote employees at the beginning of the pandemic, but just 9 months later almost 70 of companies said they were “definitely likely” to lean into hiring remotely in 2021. 

Overall, half of the predictions covered in this report touch on Remote Work in some way – including predictions on when people will return to the office, VC sentiment on Remote Work startups, and more. Give it a read here.

2) Jim Cramer reveals his 10 investment themes for 2021 (CNBC’s Mad Money)

On the first Monday of the New Year CNBC’s Jim Cramer took the opportunity to share his wisdom about picking stock in 2021, and the central tenet of his advice was to pay attention to themes. 

“I always fall back on themes. That’s the best way to approach a sell-off, like we had today,” he said. “It’s these long-term themes that work the best.”

Cramer then goes on to list the top 10 long term themes that he recommends as a guide for investing, with one of those themes being Remote Work:

This is particularly interesting because it provides a different perspective on the prediction that Remote Work is here to stay. We hear that a lot from tech pundits and – of course – people who’s technology enables Remote Work (we’re certainly guilty of that prediction here at Cameyo, of course), but for Remote Work to be recognized as a long term-term theme that will drive investment strategy in 2021 and beyond – that’s very interesting. 

3) Businesses to boost collaboration spending in ‘21 as remote work continues (Computerworld)

Citing multiple surveys and research reports from analyst firms IDC, 451 Research, and Nemertes Group, this article has a TON of great stats about Remote Work and its impact on IT spending in 2021. Overall the data points a very clear picture that organizations of all sizes are planning to spend more in 2021 to enable better, more productive, and more secure Remote Work. 

Here’s jut a quick overview of some of the stats I found most interesting:

• “Even with vaccinations offering hope for something of a return to normal in the year ahead, remote work will remain a necessity for many organizations. More than half (54%) of respondents to a Pew survey published this month said they want to work from home “all or most of the time” when the coronavirus outbreak is over, while a third would do so “some of the time.” Only 11% say they’d want to do this “rarely or never.””
• “Data from analyst firm IDC indicates that around half of businesses globally (48%) expect to increase spending on collaboration software in 2021, according to a recent survey report.”
• “451 Research’s found that nearly four in five respondents expect their organizations to either maintain or increase spending across categories that include content storage and sharing tools (85%), video collaboration (84%), remote work equipment and peripherals (83%), digital workspace (80%), team messaging and collaboration (79%) and unified communications (77%).”
• “During 2021, many businesses expect to support a greater mix of remote and in-office staff, often referred to as a “remote hybrid strategy.” A Gartner survey earlier this year indicated that, in the longer term, 82% of business will let staff work remotely some of the time.”

This article is definitely worth a full read through, but overall there is no denying that all of the data from multiple analyst firms, surveys, and reports shows that Remote Work is now being considered a long-term reality that now needs to be budgeted for. 

4) Taking a pay cut to work from home forever? Three quarters of workers would jump at the chance (TechRepublic)

Not to beat a dead horse about Remote Work being a long-term trend, but I included this story because it provides a really interesting third dimension to the long-term Remote Work discussion – the employees’ view and preferences. We’ve already seen that financial analysts, technology analysts, company founders, VCs, and IT personnel all believe that Remote Work will be a long-term trend. But what about what employees want? 

I don’t think there’s any clearer indication I’ve seen of employee preference for Remote Work than the headline stat of this article:

Office workers would be willing to sacrifice up to 20% of their salary in return for a fully remote role that allowed them to work from anywhere. A poll of 1,000 office workers in the UK conducted by OnePoll on behalf of Citrix found that three-quarters (75%) of employees would accept a pay cut in return for a job that allowed them to work remotely.

It’s one thing for employees to say that they’d prefer to work from home, or at least to have the flexibility to work from home sometimes. But the fact that people would be willing to accept up to 20% reduction in pay in exchange for a fully remote role leaves no room for ambiguity. Moving forward, people are going to demand this type of flexibility. And if their company won’t give it to them, they’ll leave – even accepting a substantial paycut – to go to a company that does. 

5) After embracing remote work in 2020, companies face conflicts making it permanent (VentureBeat)

To provide a bit of a balance to the avalanche of stories this week talking about the benefits and inevitability of long-term Remote Work, this article does a great job of unpacking the future of work while realistically addressing the fact that there are still plenty of executives who are NOT a fan of Remote Work (Netflix’s CEO Reed Hastings is cited as one very prominent opponent). 

“If I had to guess, the five-day workweek will become four days in the office while one day is virtual from home,” Hastings said.

But after acknowledging some examples of why execs oppose Remote Work, the article dives deep into the premise that, at this point, there are far too many benefits of Remote Work that companies simply can’t ignore. This leads to a great conversation and breakdown of all the things that businesses need to address to fully tap into these benefits. It covers everything from how Remote Work opens up a vastly larger talent pool for companies, how it can improve efficiency, cost savings, and more. 

In particular, what impressed me most about this article was the balance it was able to strike about the benefits of Remote Work while at the same time acknowledging that there are still valid concerns out there from some execs who aren’t fully sold on the long-term viability. Definitely worth a read. 

Thank you for joining us for This Week in Remote Work, and be sure to meet us back here next Friday for the next edition. 

The post This Week in Remote Work – Jan. 8th Edition appeared first on Cameyo.

News of the postponement also came with news of changes to their workplace approach. Instead of a full-scale return to the office, Google would instead be adopting a “flexible workweek” pilot plan. Employees would be expected to be in the office at least three days per week (dubbed “collaboration days”) and work from home the other two.

Of course, Google isn’t the only company that’s embracing the idea of the “new normal” and treating the pandemic as an opportunity to rethink the status quo. Back in August, a Mercer survey found that 83% of companies were considering expanding their implementation of flexible work environments over pre-pandemic levels. A full 73% of the survey’s respondents intended to evolve toward a mix of in-office and remote work.

A perfect storm with digital workspaces at its center

This kind of major cultural shift across the enterprise isn’t something that just comes out of nowhere. It requires a perfect storm of circumstance, vision and resources.

And while the current shift was no doubt accelerated by the pandemic, the technology also has to exist to support it. That’s why there’s been a boom in demand for virtual app delivery, desktop-as-a-service (DaaS) and virtual desktop technologies. Solutions like these have made it possible for companies to contemplate the move to hybrid workplaces in the first place.

The post-pandemic adoption of permanent hybrid models also shows how pivotal these solutions will be in the future. Employees will need to be able to transition seamlessly from remote to in-office work. To ensure uninterrupted productivity, they’ll need to have a workflow and user experience that are consistent across any location: a unified digital workspace, regardless of environment.

Seamlessness and security through virtual application delivery

A digital workspace based on virtual application delivery offers that essential mix of consistency and flexibility. It’s a way for organizations to easily provide employees with the apps they need—wherever and whenever they need them.

When virtual application delivery is done right:

• There’s reduced administrative overhead. Provisioning employees with business-critical software is less work because management is simpler. There are fewer moving parts, which streamlines deployment and configuration.
• Remote workers find it to be transparent and convenient. Access to their apps is always a few clicks away. It doesn’t involve downloading a bunch of software clients or carrying out complicated VPN-style login procedures.
• It’s secure. Not having to rely on a VPN or throw open the doors to the company’s internal network helps to mitigate risk. Apps are provided via an HTML5 browser session.
• Infrastructure shrinks as scalability increases. Compared to conventional digital workspaces like VDI, virtual application delivery is cloud-native and seamlessly scales to support large, dynamic user pools.

With virtual application delivery, employees can switch fluidly between in-office and remote work because the way they access their business-critical applications doesn’t change. Although their devices and surroundings might vary, their workflows remain the same. And that consistency and simplicity is as true for modern software as it is for legacy Windows applications.

Digital workspaces will continue to bolster hybrid workplaces

As with any transformational shift, cause and effect can become mutually reinforcing. The evolution of the workplace toward hybrid models will only end up increasing demand for the technologies that are making that evolution possible. IT staff as well as employees will come to expect access to the same kinds of digital workspaces that are empowering large companies’ remote workforces and enabling them to remain productive as they segue between the company office and the home office.

Cameyo’s virtual application delivery platform is a user-friendly, secure, cost-effective and scalable way to meet those expectations. Start today with your free trial of Cameyo and create a foundation that your hybrid workplace can build on for years to come.

The post Why a Hybrid Office Will Increase Demand for Digital Workspaces appeared first on Cameyo.

With that, let’s dig in:

1) Google Delays Return to Office and Eyes ‘Flexible Work Week’ (New York Times)

In the category of “not a surprise to anyone”, Google became the latest of many large companies that have publicly announced that they are delaying plans to have employees return to the office until later in 2021. But what’s interesting is that Google’s announcement also outlined what the new normal of office life will look like once people do start returning:

Google has pushed back the planned return to the office by a few months, to September 2021.

But even as it extends the remote work period for most of its staff, Google is laying out a series of proposed changes that may substantially alter how its employees and people at other technology companies will work.

In an email to the staff on Sunday night, Sundar Pichai, chief executive of Google’s parent company, Alphabet, said the company was testing the idea of a “flexible workweek” once it is safe to return to the office. Under the pilot plan, employees would be expected to work at least three days a week in the office for “collaboration days” while working from home the other days.

Granted, a majority of companies are making similar plans – but we’re starting to see these plans formalized into policy. Almost every analyst conversation we have has confirmed that all the organizations they speak with are planning a similar hybrid approach to remote work once people do start coming back to the office. I think it’s safe at this point to state that the future of working will include a certain percentage of people working remotely 100% of the time with the rest going into the office 2-3 days a week for these “collaboration days” as needed. 

This is likely why the boom in Virtual App Delivery, DaaS, and virtual desktop technologies isn’t showing any signs of slowing down. Even if people go into the office 3 times per week, they need to be able to maintain secure, simple access to all of the apps they need to be productive on the days they’re not in the office. And rather than having one workflow in the office and another at home, Digital Workspaces enable you to give your people a seamless, unified workflow no matter where they are. 

2) 2021 Top Enterprise IT Trends Report (ITPro Today)

This is a really interesting recap of the top trends for 2021, as predicted by reporters across the Informa family of publications – including ITPro Today, Information Week, Dark Reading, Network Computing, and more. It’s worth filling out the short form to download the whole report. They outline 15 key trends for 2021, and when it comes to the world of remote work, several are interesting:

• DaaS
• WFH Access and Security
• Cloud Security
• Remote and Endpoint Security

Chris Tozzi of ITPro Today does a great job with his overview of the Desktop as a service (DaaS) trend. And while noting the various drivers of DaaS’ current growth, he also realistically calls out some of the barriers for DaaS adoption, too:

One key hindrance is that, even if you move your workers’ desktop environments into the cloud, they still need physical devices for accessing those desktops. Although an enterprise could request its employees make their personal machines available for installing the DaaS client, that presents a range of security and logistics headaches. Alternately, an enterprise can supply employees with devices for logging into its DaaS service. But then the IT staff still has physical hardware to purchase and maintain, thus perpetuating the management and budgetary challenges that come with them.

It’s important to note that DaaS is just one of the technology approaches to delivering Digital Workspaces, with Virtual App Delivery being another (as well as traditional VDI). For a quick view of the real-world differences between Virtual App Delivery and DaaS, check out this post. 

3) As 2021 approaches, COVID-19 may be catalyzing the future of security (S&P Global)

The analysts at 451 Research (now part of S&P Global) break down the overall impact that COVID-19 is having on the future of security. This is a great article that digs into some of their recent data that shows how spending and IT focus is shifting as a result, too. 

Securing vastly expanded access means more than adapting to the realities of a global pandemic. In the long run, it will mean confronting the realities of the evolving nature of enterprise IT – not just millions of new remote endpoints, but also the proliferation of tens or hundreds of third-party IT services that substantially alter the nature of risk control for the business. Add to this the expected explosion in new types of endpoints and edge computing models, 5G and operational technologies, and the nature of enterprise security only a few years if not a few months hence begins to look very different…

Adapting the enterprise to remote work at scale meant that hundreds or thousands of home networks became extensions of the business, but not always with the same level of risk assurance that organizations have from the on-premises network. It often meant embracing third-party resources such as digital workspace, teleconferencing and collaboration technologies delivered from the cloud, and directly accessible to users without having to go through the enterprise network…

Security must adapt to the changing nature of enterprise IT. Coronavirus may be catalyzing the investment necessary to do so. It will take time – the need for far-reaching change is substantial – but as businesses emerge from the ‘new abnormal’ to a future hopefully changed for the better, we would hope for the landscape of security to be changed for the better as well.

This post perfectly sums up the security issues facing organizations across every sector. This is precisely why we talk so much about security here at Cameyo – why it’s critical to select a Digital Workspace that views security as foundational, not something that can be layered on later. For more info on why security needs to be designed into the core of your remote work solutions, check out this post. 

4) The Invisible Impact of the Pandemic on Data Security: Why 2021 Will Be Different (NextGov)

In another article about the role that remote work has played in turning corporate data security on its head, this post does a good job of breaking down what needs to happen to protect data in an increasingly remote world. And you’ve got to appreciate how simple and direct the advice is:

In 2021 and beyond, cloud-native solutions that offer a deep understanding of user behavior must become the new normal.

We couldn’t agree more. And here are our thoughts on reducing the attack surface for remote workers. 

5) How To Successfully Lead Teams Through Work-From-Home To Work-From-Anywhere (Forbes) 

Finally, I thought it made sense to close things out with an article about how we can think more deliberately about helping our people and teams thrive during the remote work era. 

According to a new study from Pew Research, more than half of people who have been able to work from home (WFH) during the pandemic do not want to return to the office full time once the pandemic is over. While many employees might not be returning to the office, they also won’t need to exclusively WFH once Covid-19 is under control. Business leaders need to think beyond WFH and prepare to lead teams that are working from anywhere (WFA).

This post, written by a career executive coach, highlights three key areas to consider when trying to lead in a remote world:

• Boost Creativity
• Clarify Expectations
• Improve Communications

There are some good, simple, actionable tips in this article that any leader should think about as they work to truly enable productivity and happiness amongst their new “Work From Anywhere” (WFA) workforce. 

Thank you all for following along with us in 2020, and we can’t wait to see you back in 2021. In the meantime, we wish you all very Happy Holidays!

The post This Week in Remote Work – Dec. 18th Edition appeared first on Cameyo.

With all that spending on DX, you’d think that most companies would be trumpeting their success. However, prior to the pandemic surveys were indicating that seven out of ten digital transformation initiatives had fallen short of expectations.

Those less than stellar results could be chalked up to a number of factors. An important one is the fact that legacy Windows apps are such a hard habit to break. Even though many organizations still rely on older software for business-critical tasks, anything described as “legacy” is often seen as an insurmountable hurdle to a comprehensive DX initiative.

Bridging the DX gap – Run Windows applications in the browser

The truth is, legacy Windows applications can be modernized. And with zero redevelopment time to boot. It just depends on how they’re delivered. Running Windows apps from the browser is the ideal way to give users access to tried-and-tested software via a secure, up-to-date, multi-platform client.

Here are five reasons why running Windows apps in the browser makes sense—whether it’s part of a dedicated DX strategy, your long-term remote work strategy, or some other initiative:

1. To reduce complexity. With the permanent shift to remote work, IT needs to give end users access to important apps regardless of where those users are or which device they’re working on, even if it’s not a company-issued device. Virtual app delivery makes it much easier to provision and update apps in one location rather than having to maintain locally installed apps on thousands of devices.
2. To lower costs. Delivering virtual apps through the browser takes existing, proven solutions and makes them available to current-gen devices. With the right virtual app delivery platform, there’s no need to invest in untested new software, expensive virtual desktop infrastructure (VDI) or time-consuming provisioning methods.
3. To increase security. Running Windows applications in the browser has the potential to be much more secure than similar alternatives. Its simplicity actually leaves fewer gaps for malicious actors to exploit. By eliminating the need for VPNs and open RDP ports, it can reduce the attack surface for remote workers. And by keeping the user device separate from the corporate network, it helps to augment strict Zero Trust security models.
4. To boost productivity. Another benefit of browser-based delivery of legacy Windows apps is that it caters to the dynamic nature of remote work. If an end user switches to a different device in a new location, they still have secure access to the apps they need. They can maintain their usual workflow without missing a beat. But virtual app delivery is also great news for IT. The built-in security and ease of administration means overworked IT staff can refocus on more pressing issues.
5. To enhance the user experience. When users are running Windows applications in a browser, they get the exact same desktop version of the application they’re used to. The only difference is that the application launches in a browser tab, instead of as a locally-installed app. Because there’s no learning curve and no VPNs to negotiate, it’s incredibly transparent to the end user. It’s also ultra-versatile, because it means critical apps—even legacy ones—are now available on any device with a browser.

Make legacy Windows apps part of your digital transformation

Even when your end users are working remotely on personal devices, Cameyo’s virtual app delivery platform gives them convenient, secure access to their familiar desktop-class software at a fraction of the cost of VDI. And with none of the usual drawbacks.

Get started with a free trial of Cameyo today and discover how quick and easy it is for your end users to run Windows apps right from their browsers. Instead of viewing legacy software as a compromise to your company’s DX, you’ll see how those solutions can become an integral part of it.

The post 5 Benefits of Running Windows Applications in the Browser appeared first on Cameyo.