Liquidware has been recognized as IGEL Partner of the Year for its Collaboration with the edge OS provider. Stratusphere leads the market with digital experience metrics for any workspace and that includes edge OS endpoints such as IGEL OS. Liquidware’s team has gone above and beyond many other monitoring solutions to design a purpose built agent for IGEL and other Linux based endpoints (in addition to Windows). Last week IGEL recognized Liquidware as Partner of the Year for our collaboration which benefits joint customers. We are delighted to be recognized by our longstanding strategic alliance partner, IGEL, for our collaboration efforts!

We’ve been working together with IGEL since 2010 and one of the main points of our collaboration has been the integration of our digital experience monitoring solution, Stratusphere™ UX, into the IGEL operating system. This integration offers IT organizations greater insight into the end user desktop computing experience and give them the visibility they need to more effectively monitor and manage desktop performance.

Subsequently, last year we jointly launched our Repurposing Desktops to IGEL OS Powered by Stratusphere UX campaign. IGEL partnered with us to help organizations benefit from the security, performance, and costs savings of IGEL OS. We provide a FREE assessment to provide clear, concise and detailed information about an organization’s desktops to assist in making an informed decision on how to best repurpose them.

Continuing our joint collaboration, we recently jointly announced our co-sponsorship of a research report from Freeform Dynamics entitled “Modernizing the Digital Workplace.” You can read the press release here that contains the links to report from both Liquidware and IGEL. To complement this report, we are hosting alongside IGEL a webinar on April 12, where the report’s author, Bryan Betts, will join us.

We are proud to work with IGEL and as super proud of this recognition – thank you Team IGEL!!

FlexApp has been the number one app attachment layering solution for more than 10 years. The innovation continues and it cannot be beat.

Here are 12 FlexApp layering innovations you won’t find anywhere else!

1. FlexApp One – Self-contained app option that supports laptop use and deployment by any means, including Microsoft Intune, VMware Workspace One, and any cloud share. No heavy “player” or agent required.
2. Packaging Automation – Do you have dozens or hundreds of apps? We’ve automated app packaging. Go home on a Friday, return Monday and your apps are packaged and ready to go!
3. Compatibility – More than 90% of your apps can be delivered with FlexApp, all while keeping your base images clean and free of Windows rot. Nothing matches it, MSIX alone is estimated to cover only 30% of apps and 30% of your apps attached is not a solution.
4. Application layering with full user environment management (ProfileUnity) – delivering advanced application delivery options including context awareness, select privilege elevation, application restrictions, registry fix up, and more!
5. Micro Isolation – no need to stack multiple applications in single layers. Instead, a single layer is created for each application, which allows for ultimate granularity in assigning apps to users, groups and machines. This approach also simplifies updating applications by allowing you to update a single package for a single app rather than dealing with cumbersome multi-app layers. Lastly, this approach provides greater success with packaging and deploying applications, as you no longer need to deal with conflicts manually.
6. Cloud Native FlexApps – Applications can be stored natively on any major cloud (such as Microsoft Blob storage) without the expense or complications of file shares.
7. FlexApp Cache Mode – FlexApps cache to the local session for rock-solid performance, regardless of the quality of network connections.
8. FlexApp Cloud Apps – FlexApp includes prepackaged cloud apps so you can hit the ground running with POCs without packaging.
9. Disaster Recovery and High Availability – FlexApp includes its own messaging fabric and replication without requiring expensive load balancers and complicated DR plans.
10. FastPackaging™ – While other app layering solutions can take more than 45 minutes to package even a simple app, FlexApp packaging is a fast process and occurs in about the same time it takes to install the app once!
11. PackageOnce™ – FlexApp applications work across Windows OS versions (app support required), with no need to repackage applications for OS upgrades!
12. Session Isolation – Multi-session Windows 10, RDS, and Citrix Virtual Apps are no problem for FlexApp, users only see and use the apps they have access to, even on the same host!

FlexApp is simply the best. If you’ve not tried FlexApp, what are you waiting for? Download ProfileUnity with FlexApp today and you’ll be on your way to efficient app delivery – greatly decreasing your total cost of workspace ownership by streamlining your image management requirements.

We’re delighted to be attending HIMSS again! Come and chat with our team of digital workspace management experts during the 5-day show (14-18 March, Orange County Convention Center, Orlando, FL.)  You can find us on our partner IGEL’s booth #5443. You can also receive an Apple AirTag just for making and keeping a one-on-one meeting.

Liquidware delivers a digital workspace environment ideally constructed for healthcare clinicians, that includes:

• Anytime, Anywhere Workspaces – delivered to clinicians, regardless of where they login, with ProfileUnity™.
• Accelerating Logins – Stratusphere™ UX and ProfileUnity reduce login times to near instantaneous access to workspaces, saving precious patient care time.
• Security – Liquidware solutions help healthcare organizations meet US-CERT recommendations to protect their workspace environments from malware and ransomware attacks.
• Imprivata Integration – ProfileUnity integrates with providers such as Imprivata for secure single-sign on authentication, eliminating multiple logins.
• Applications on Demand – FlexApp™ is Liquidware’s leading application layering and delivery platform enabling healthcare applications – like the ones from Epic Software – be delivered on demand without the need to be in the system’s base image.

Working in partnership with IGEL, we are helping organizations to reduce their cost of ownership by repurposing PCs with a free assessment powered by Stratusphere UX to extend the life of existing hardware assets. You can read more about the program in this solution brief.

Liquidware’s healthcare solutions are utilized across many organizations to enable next generation workspaces that meet the growing demands in healthcare IT. You can read more about the significant benefits we deliver in this white paper. And read how other healthcare organizations are using Liquidware solutions here.

We’re also co-hosting a fun go-karting evening on Tuesday March 15 – you can register here to attend.

For further information on our solutions focused on healthcare IT, please visit https://www.liquidware.com/solutions/vdi-solutions-healthcare.

The scary thing about Zero Day Vulnerabilities is that they are either unknown or there is a systematic delayed response to counter the threat. Virtual workspaces, such as those from Microsoft, Citrix, and VMware, are answering this challenge with workspaces that can easily be set to self-reset at user logoff or other interval.

Resetting virtual workspaces to the last known good image without vulnerabilities is an excellent way to rid workspaces of emerging threats such as Zero Day Vulnerabilities. It sounds easy on the surface but there is a little more strategy involved to keep your workspaces uninterrupted and users productive.

Two additional items are key in restoring pristine workspaces at login: 1) the user should be able to instantly recognize their desktop with persona settings that persist from session to session and, 2) the applications they need should be readily available.

The basics of restoring user personas’ is possible with profile tools but they have their shortcomings – often user profiles can still become corrupt and Windows user profiles are locked to a Windows version. There is also a lot of cached “junk” that typically goes along with the profile too that can increase your vulnerability risk and needlessly take up valuable storage. Liquidware’s ProfileUnity overcomes all of these challenges with enterprise ready “smart” user profiles that only contain mission critical user data, readily adapt to new Windows OS versions, and automatically restore in the event of a profile corruption.

Likewise, Liquidware’s FlexApp solution securely restores applications to user workspaces in seconds at login. When a virtual workspace is dynamically created by VMware Horizon, Citrix, etc., FlexApp automatically reattaches applications. This approach automatically deploys known good versions of the applications that users’ need to do their job. Applications are also easy to update as well and can be done at next user login (with a new pristine workspace) to avoid any user downtime. The big benefit is that base images stay pristine and clean and that’s a good way to stay ahead of Zero Day Vulnerabilities.

Zero Day Vulnerabilities are a challenge and one that looks like we’re going to be forced to live with. You can incorporate workspace strategies that will greatly mitigate and minimize your organization’s risk, including the following:

• Deploy pristine workspaces at every login or reset them at short intervals such as every evening
• Leverage “Smart” and flexible user profiles with ProfileUnity to ensure users’ mission critical user data is always readily available to your restored pristine desktops
• Invoke FlexApp to reattach apps that are securely restored to the last good version to keep users productive

Reach out to our team today and we’ll assist you with a methodology that will get you started with mitigating Zero Day Vulnerabilities with dynamic workspaces.

Microsoft is ramping up Windows 11 messaging in the news, recently claiming the new OS is being adopted at twice the rate that Windows 10 was a few years ago.*  Home and small business users may be the bulk of those early adopters if the pattern follows that of earlier OS versions.

It’s a little early for enterprises to have FOMO. That’s because experts say that most enterprises will likely wait until next year (2023).** These opinions are mostly in line with what our own enterprise customer base told us in a recent survey:

• 12% are planning to migrate in the first half of 2022
• 41% are planning to migrate in the second half of 2022 and
• 41% are planning to migrate sometime during 2023

We recently delivered a live webinar on the topic, see and hear the recording here. The session entitled, “Formula for successful deployment and automated user migrations with Liquidware,” will cover what your organization should be doing to prepare for Windows 11. If you miss the live webinar, we’ll also post a recording soon.

What’s New in Windows 11?
Windows 11’s interface is being called “Mac-like.” This new look comes with many changes. The Start Menu and task bar are notably different and there are also new capabilities called Windows Widgets, and Snap Layouts and Groups. Just a few days ago Microsoft also introduced Android app capabilities in the latest preview. Don’t get too excited about Android apps, it’s limited because it relies on the Amazon App Store (USA only). To be clear, this is not the same as Android Apps via Google Play, which would include far more Android apps. With all of these changes, the Windows user profile is also very different between Windows 10 and 11 so upgrades are not seamless for enterprise users.

Never fear though because just this week we announced that ProfileUnity and FlexApp 6.8.4 R2 is now available! ProfileUnity remediates user profile changes from OS to OS on the fly, in seconds, enabling a zero user downtime transition to Windows 11. This version features enhanced support for Windows 11 and Server 2022. Watch the recently recorded webinar now.

Citations and further reading:

*“People are adopting Windows 11 at twice the rate of 10, OS upgrade offer ahead of schedule” January 26, 2022, WindowsCentral.com

** “Windows 11 adoption nears 9%, but businesses are waiting” Dec. 2, 2023, Computerworld.com

Windows 11 is now generally available. How ready is your organization for Windows 11? Some will say that Windows 11 is just an update to Windows 10 but we’ve done our testing and that’s not altogether true.  Remember when Microsoft said that Windows 10 was “the last OS” and the “forever version of Windows”?  Well, now we know it clearly was not.

Windows 11’s interface is being called “Mac-like.” This new look comes with many changes. The Start Menu and task bar are notably different and there are also new capabilities called Windows Widgets, Snap Layouts and Groups, and Android apps are also coming to Windows 11 OS a little later. With all of these changes, the Windows user profile is also very different between Windows 10 and 11. If your profiles today are reliant on basic profile tools such as roaming profiles or FSLogix, they will not work seamlessly between Windows 10 and 11.

Before your organization moves even one workspace to Windows 11 or Azure Virtual Desktop on Windows 11  you should practice a tried and true methodology for migration success. We’ll be delivering a webinar later this month entitled, “Ready for Windows 11? Get the 411 from Liquidware” – be sure to register now. But prior to that, here are some key points to consider as you start planning for Windows 11.

This week we launched FlexApp Packaging Automation. The head turning news about our FlexApp One GA announcement is still fresh on everyone’s minds and our development team has already done it again – made news by creating new innovation in the app layering market.

Our existing FlexApp packaging console has long been noticed by industry gurus as the easiest way to create a FlexApp packaging container for layering and portability. It is straightforward and easy to use for a few dozen apps or a consistent flow of a few apps to package at a time. But what about larger enterprises which can easily have hundreds or thousands of apps to package? This is the reason why FlexApp Automated Packaging was born. We’ve seen competitors attempt to automate packaging with scripts but FlexApp leads with innovation with the most automated bulk packaging options available.

FlexApp Automated Packaging provides enterprises with the ability to significantly reduce application packaging and deployment times. It also provides great integration for DevOps by enabling an organization to deliver applications at high velocity. The new feature enables app administrators to use several VMs at once to create unattended FlexApps from virtually any Windows application. Imagine setting up your packaging and then going home for the night, only to return the next morning with hundreds off apps all ready set for testing and deployment as FlexApps.

Today we announced the General Availability of FlexApp One, a new feature in FlexApp that revolutionizes the way that app layers are made portable and consumed.

FlexApp One untethers FlexApp applications by containerizing them in a self-sufficient executable. Benefits include rapid application deployment through any means, including popular cloud file sharing services, and optional deployment with Microsoft Endpoint Configuration Manager. FlexApp One applications remain elastic and can even go offline to support the increased demand in work from anywhere workforces. That’s right, physical PCs and laptops are supported as long as they are well-managed – unencumbered by multiple software packages installed/uninstalled by users.

Remember, FlexApp and FlexApp One applications are never “installed” to the Windows OS, therefore they don’t degrade the PC, virtual workspace, or Server OS overtime. The result is a clean base image that is easy to maintain and apps that are very easy to deploy and update.

HIMSS 2021 just wrapped up and we thought we’d share a few thoughts on the conference.

This was the first in-person event that Liquidware has been able to participate in 17 months due to Covid-19 cancelations. We’ve all been personally affected by the pandemic in many ways and we hope you are doing your best to stay safe while continuing to experience life and work. We were excited to have the chance to see the emergence of a bit of normalcy with an in-person conference like HIMSS (Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society). Strict measures were taken by HIMSS to ensure a safe conference including mandatory individual health checks, masks, and more.

We exhibited in the IGEL Ready pavilion and would like to thank IGEL for their leadership in “getting out there” and committing to this event in a big way. More than 20,000 people attended the conference in Las Vegas last week, just less than half of the attendance that the 2019 show in Orlando saw. Still, this was a sizeable conference. While foot traffic was noticeably lighter than in previous years due to the impact of Covid-19, we had many great conversations with healthcare IT professionals.

We shared ways that Liquidware solutions have helped with the Work from Anywhere movement and specifically how we have kept many hospitals’ physical, Citrix and VMware Windows workspaces performing flexibly throughout the pandemic. Many were interested in our Liquidware FlexApp layering solution that will soon be extended to support Microsoft Endpoint Manager and offline use cases through a forthcoming FlexApp One feature. We also discussed the emergence of Microsoft AVD, Windows 365 and Cloud PC and how the entire Liquidware Digital Workspace Management suite already supports these platforms today.

Liquidware to showcase digital workspace management for healthcare provider organizations.

Liquidware will be exhibiting at HIMSS 21, Las Vegas August 10-12 in booth #2859 in the IGEL Ready Pavilion. While Liquidware has experienced significant growth and demand for digital workspace management in the last year, the event marks the first in-person event that Liquidware has had the opportunity to exhibit at since the start of the Covid-19 pandemic. More than 21,000 are reported to be registered to attend. We’re looking forward to seeing many of you!

We will be demonstrating how our solutions provide seamless digital workspace management for healthcare workers. Stratusphere UX delivers end-to-end monitoring and diagnostics while FlexApp layering simplifies desktop image and application delivery. Additionally, we will also demonstrate how ProfileUnity™ integrates with secure single sign-on authentication through solutions such as Imprivata OneSign. You’ll also see how we can facilitate “follow-me” workspaces, allowing healthcare staff to provide better care for patients by having the provider’s profile and group policies follow them from station to station. The use of ProfileUnity also allows admins to select only local printers to deliver to specific user groups which allows them to choose selected printers close to their location(s) instead of an entire list. Then Stratusphere UX™ and ProfileUnity assist in reducing login times allowing healthcare professionals more time with patients.