We had a great Liquidware Unplugged with Gabe Knuth (Senior Analyst, ESG), Scott Manchester (Director of Product Management Azure Virtual Desktop and Windows 365), James O’Regan, and myself last month and this blog post highlights some of the key elements we discussed.

The format of our Unplugged sessions always starts with informal banter between the panelists prior to attendees joining. ChatGPT was discussed with, ironically, Scott informing everyone of an ‘argument’ he had with the AI solution about whether or not a certain Microsoft product was, indeed, a Microsoft product! Scott shared that he holds 25 patents and Gabe described himself as an EUC “lifer”, having been involved in the market since 1998.

There was a lot of discussion surrounding the impact Covid-19 had on Work from Anywhere solutions and how EUC, in particular virtual desktop solutions, were up for the challenge when the world needed it. Gabe also reflected on the fact that for ten plus years there have been rumors of Citrix being acquired that finally came to fruition in 2021. He also noted that with VMware being spun out of Dell in 2021 and then the announcement that it is to be acquired by Broadcom. The panel noted that there is no mention of “EUC” by Broadcom in the resulting impending acquisition.

This acquisition of VMware is resulting in Microsoft AVD, Windows 365 and Cloud PC becoming a ‘first-party’ solution that others run on. The panel suggested that Microsoft is now being in the driver’s seat, both behind the scenes as well as in front, working with third-party vendors like Liquidware (as well as others) to deliver best-of-breed solutions on top of Microsoft.

Scott and the panel took time to discuss Windows 365 and AVD options and which solution seems to be resonating with certain use cases, small to medium sized accounts, and enterprise customers. Scott further shared a sneak preview of some of his presentation that will be delivered at IGEL Disrupt and NerdioCon.

The ‘click, click, boom’ principle of ease of use for admins in deploying both virtual desktops and applications should be the same as management of physical desktops. A slide was shared technological advancements; from the disruptive, to evolution, revolution. If you missed it you can watch the recording now.

Liquidware is pleased to announce that it will be a Gold sponsor at the upcoming NerdioCon in Cancun, Mexico. This user conference will bring together IT professionals and industry experts to discuss and learn about all things Azure Virtual Desktop and Windows 365. 

During the conference, Liquidware will be hosting a breakout session, titled “Achieve App Delivery Nirvana with Liquidware FlexApp™ and Nerdio Manager for Enterprise.” Liquidware founder and CEO, David Bieneman, and Jason E. Smith, VP of Alliances and Product Marketing will present the session. 

The session will focus on how organizations can achieve a highly efficient and effective app delivery process by using Nerdio Manager for Enterprise in conjunction with Liquidware FlexApp. Together, these two solutions provide a comprehensive solution for achieving app delivery nirvana, enabling organizations to deliver applications to users quickly and seamlessly, while simplifying the management and maintenance of virtual environments. 

If you’re looking to streamline your app delivery process and achieve a more efficient virtual environment, be sure to attend the session and learn more about how Liquidware FlexApp and Nerdio Manager for Entperise can help. Additionally, you can also visit Liquidware’s booth during the conference to learn more about our other digital workspace management solutions, including Stratusphere™ UX and ProfileUnity™. 

We’re also excited to share a new Nerdio/Liquidware Joint Solutions Brief. Read about how Nerdio Manager and Liquidware FlexApp deliver seamless attached apps that keep base image management streamlined here.

We will also be giving a sneak peek of CommandCTRL, our innovative forthcoming helpdesk remediation SaaS solution, that is ideal for Windows environments and MSPs. Be sure to get an exclusive early look at CommandCTRL while at NerdioCon!

Don’t miss this opportunity to learn from industry experts and discover the latest solutions for achieving app delivery nirvana. Register now and we look forward to seeing you at NerdioCon in Cancun! 

Microsoft AVD and Windows 365 Cloud PC are sure to gain even further traction in 2023. Liquidware has been a leading Microsoft Alliance partner in Microsoft’s ecosystem since and before the introduction of these virtual and SaaS based solutions. Liquidware FlexApp is an especially great fit for AVD and Cloud PC because you can deploy apps without modifying base images, or even needing to restart user instances.

Here are five reasons Liquidware FlexApp and Microsoft AVD and Windows 365 are better together:

1. Layering of applications: FlexApp allows for the attached layering of applications within a virtual environment, while AVD allows for the virtualization of the entire desktop environment. Together, these technologies can provide a more flexible way to manage and deliver applications to users.
2. Improved Application Compatibility: FlexApp allows for applications to be delivered in a layered format, which can improve compatibility between different versions of applications and operating systems. FlexApp is 70% more compatible with Windows applications than MSIX alone.
3. Centralized Management: Windows 365 Enterprise allows for centralized management and deployment of applications, which can streamline the process of delivering and updating applications to users. Azure AD managed Cloud PCs have simplified remote worker Windows management and Liquidware FlexApp can be 100% Microsoft Intune managed with it’s FlexApp One self-contained application format.
4. Security and Compliance: Windows 365 offers additional security and compliance features that can be beneficial in a virtualized environment, FlexApp and AVD can help to protect the company’s data and applications from unauthorized access by limiting application access by time of day, location, or any context aware rule.
5. Increased Flexibility: FlexApp and AVD provide a more flexible way to deliver and manage applications, allowing users to access applications from any device, and providing administrators with the ability to quickly update and deliver new applications to users.

If you are an enterprise Windows administrator you don’t need to stop at five benefits of using Liquidware FlexApp with Microsoft AVD and Windows 365, there are many more! Download your fully functioning trial version and experience the simplicity and ease of deploying and updating apps with FlexApp today.

Microsoft’s Scott Manchester and ESG’s Gabe Knuth will join us on January 24 at 10:15 am (Central Time) for our next Liquidware Unplugged to discuss the state of EUC (End User Computing) in 2023. As the host, I’ll also be joined by James O’Regan, Product Marketing Manager at Liquidware and longtime Citrix User Group (CUGC) Leader.

Big changes have occurred in the end user computing industry in the past year. Microsoft has continued to innovate with Windows 365/Cloud PC and Windows AVD adoption is growing. Long-time platform leaders Citrix and VMware are undergoing radical company changes in the wake of being acquired, while also embracing Windows 365 and AVD. Analysts are fielding many questions from concerned clients about the future of innovation within both Citrix and VMware, with particular consternation surrounding future investment in VMware’s EUC suite under the planned Broadcom ownership.

Gabe recently wrote a superb analysis of the desktop virtualization market that really summed up the current chaos.  And, of course, Scott recently took on the mantle of director of product management for both AVD and Windows 365.

Liquidware Unplugged webinars are LIVE interactive panelist and participant sessions. This is a great opportunity for you to directly ask these industry experts what is going to happen this year and beyond.

Insider tip: Join us 15 minutes early on that day when we start with an informal chat amongst the panelists and then get into the real conversation at 10:15 am Central.

Register here to join us and be part of this interactive Liquidware Unplugged!

DATE: Tuesday, January 24, 2023

TIME: 10:15 a.m. Central Time

PANELISTS and HOST:

Scott Manchester, Microsoft Director of Product Management Azure Virtual Desktop and Windows 365
Gabe Knuth, Senior Analyst, End User Computing at Enterprise Strategy Group
James O’Regan, Local CUGC Leader and Liquidware Product Marketing Manager
Jason E. Smith (Host), Liquidware VP of Product Marketing & Alliances

When customers are looking for best of breed application delivery and management for their AVD environments, a proven pairing is Nerdio Manager and Liquidware FlexApp.  A key functionality, that is paramount for any successful deployment of AVD, is access to your users’ applications. But you don’t want to create, manage and continuously update your base image. Read the Nerdio announcement, New Nerdio Integration with Liquidware’s FlexApp One, here.

Nerdio Manager for Enterprise enables organizations to rapidly deploy and manage AVD and Windows 365. Combine that with Liquidware FlexApp, and customers have a high compatibility rating for application deployment. In fact, FlexApp delivers customers over a 90% compatibility for deploying their applications. Deploying those apps via Nerdio Manager decreases management overhead and negates having to include applications in a base image.

Liquidware’s FlexApp One feature enables Nerdio Manager to directly assign and attach the self-contained FlexApp applications that are hosted in Microsoft Azure to AVD workspaces. Because FlexApp One apps are fully portable, they can be assigned by Nerdio Manager directly without the need for any additional agent or management console. Register now for a free webinar where you’ll see a demo and virtually meet the CEOs of Nerdio and Liquidware.

Enterprise sized organizations running AVD may benefit even more from FlexApp as they tend to have numerous applications in many different formats – not only MSIX, but also MSI, EXE, and homegrown custom applications that may even have multiple drivers and services. Windows base image management becomes quite complex in these organizations and FlexApp can easily streamline and greatly reduce the number of base images in those environments by simply attaching applications directly from Microsoft Azure.

Citrix is headed toward their acquisition by Vista Equity Partners and Elliott Investment Management “mid-year.” Meanwhile VMware has agreed to be acquired by Broadcom late this year or next year. Let Liquidware be the first to say that VMware and Citrix end user computing platforms have led the market in recent years for a reason. If you are a customer of Citrix or VMware there is no reason to make a rush judgement on changing courses, both Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops and VMware Horizon will likely remain solid solutions for some time. While the history of the suitors in these deals may not inspire confidence for continued innovation, they know what they are getting at the platform level and, at least Broadcom for instance, has a good track record for maintaining status quo for their largest enterprise customers.

Still, with all the advancements in end user computing by leaders like Microsoft with AVD and Windows 365, enterprises are asking themselves if it’s time they looked around to make sure they have the right workspace solution for their end users. If you are asking yourself this question, we agree with you. You should always be aware of your options.

Liquidware was founded more than 12 years ago on the premise that enterprise sized organizations needed an ally with solutions and knowledge to help them transform their workspaces. We’ve continued that focus, at first it was transforming them to VDI and RDS based solutions, now it has evolved in to multiple use cases, including full support for physical desktops and laptops and the latest DaaS solutions such as Microsoft AVD and Windows 365. Our customers that have our Digital Workspace Management Suite as their ally during transformations, are equipped to assess the situation, on-board users to a new platform without downtime with ProfileUnity, deliver follow-me applications with FlexApp from the cloud, and ensure the quality of the new platform experience with Stratusphere UX.  

Using Liquidware for your user profiles, application management and user experience monitoring, you have the freedom to leverage multiple Windows delivery platforms now. You’re not stuck managing a single solution. Whether you are switching platforms for cheaper, faster, improved security, more reliable or other reasons, with Liquidware, you can operate both environments simultaneously and securely migrate users to the new platform of your choice with confidence. 

Liquidware solutions also save customers money! At a time where every dollar matters Stratusphere UX has been able to save organizations millions of dollars by extending the lifecycle of their PCs with the Optimizer feature, finding unused software licenses, and by identifying existing hardware that can be reallocated to better use. Likewise, FlexApp saves organizations time and money with streamlined app delivery and simplified base image management, while ProfileUnity keeps user productivity high while keeping endpoints secure.

Liquidware customers were also prepared when the pandemic hit. Many of them were able to burst scale their VDI and DaaS solutions and send their workers home without downtime. Many more Liquidware customers have also switched platforms between Citrix, VMware, and native AVD, seamlessly and with no impact to users. We value our alliances with Citrix, VMware, and Microsoft but we serve our customers’ needs first. If they make a decision to switch platforms, our solutions and our support staff work seamlessly to make it happen.

By using Liquidware’s Digital Workspace Management solutions our customers mitigate risk by not keeping of all their eggs in one workspace basket and neither should you.

Download a trial today…

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.