Jack Madden - All Comments

re: What you may have missed from the Apple WWDC: There are MAJOR enterprise enhancements coming with iOS 7.

Colin Steele — Wed, 12 Jun 2013 12:42:52 GMT

I agree, Brian. Background apps are a big deal. I use Pocket on my iPhone and iPad to save articles I want to read offline later. I tried it the other day on the subway and couldn't read anything I'd saved recently, because the app doesn't sync and download content unless you open it, and by the time I realized that, I was underground with no signal.

re: What you may have missed from the Apple WWDC: There are MAJOR enterprise enhancements coming with iOS 7.

rahvintzu — Tue, 11 Jun 2013 22:52:19 GMT

With these threads going on in the background, I wonder if people will start complaining about battery life impact.

re: What you may have missed from the Apple WWDC: There are MAJOR enterprise enhancements coming with iOS 7.

Brian Madden — Tue, 11 Jun 2013 16:36:59 GMT

I recently (like 2 weeks ago) switched from iPhone to Android. The #1 biggest reason for me was the background apps issue. I can't tell you how cool it is that my non-built-in mail client can also download mail in the background so it's just "ready to go" whenever I access it. (Though how lame is it that I have to be excited over an arbitrary feature that Apple disables on purpose?)

Actually the background app thing is great all around, the NY Times app is always up-to-date without me having to wait for it to sync every time it opens.. Same for Evernote, etc.

So this will be huge for iOS in enterprises.. not just for third party email, but for data sync, calendar, contacts, password syncing, etc. The ability to do this in the background is critical, and now that these devices are multicore and billions of flops or whatever, it just makes sense. Good for them! (Too bad it took so long, but I guess we're still waiting for EMM solutions to mature anyway.)

re: MobileIron is working on an “Open App Alliance” for mobile app management interoperability. Here’s everything we know so far.

Joe Schmelzer — Wed, 29 May 2013 19:35:33 GMT

Fascinating that no one is even talking about either OMA-DM or TR-069 standards. Probably should be...

re: Give us your questions for the Citrix Synergy Geek Speak Tonight! panelists

Carl Webster — Tue, 21 May 2013 21:56:34 GMT

Har... I mean AppDective, there are many other questions that people want asked onight. what one question from each of your groups do you want me to ask?

re: Give us your questions for the Citrix Synergy Geek Speak Tonight! panelists

Jon Rolls — Tue, 21 May 2013 21:11:12 GMT

Oh, actually I will be there... and so might Mr. appdetective (or Mrs?) ...

re: Give us your questions for the Citrix Synergy Geek Speak Tonight! panelists

Jon Rolls — Tue, 21 May 2013 21:06:25 GMT

I'll suggest a few too:

1) What does Citrix estimate is the % usage of session virt (XenApp) vs. persistent VDI vs. non-persistent VDI? It's all one license in XenDesktop so there's probably no accurate way to find out, but anecdotally what do they think? And what do they see as the long-term trend?

2) 15 years ago Citrix was worried that WinFrame was just a "band aid" for deployment of legacy Windows apps, and that Web/Java technologies would take over. The Windows desktop virtualization business is bigger than ever - how long will that continue? Is it really true that only cockroaches and Windows apps will survive the holocaust?

3) Windows 8 - is there a strong use case for virtualizing and deploying Metro/Modern/Windows Store apps?

4) What do they think of RDP 8?

Sorry I won't be there to hear the responses :)

Jon

re: Give us your questions for the Citrix Synergy Geek Speak Tonight! panelists

appdetective — Tue, 21 May 2013 19:42:49 GMT

Here's a pool of 5 questions/comments for each session that I quickly put together that many just I predict will beat around the bush or avoid answering. Let's see how many get asked! More importantly will they be answered? I hope it's a good event, have fun all, sorry I can't even attend remotely this year.

Desktoptop Panel

1) Who's setting desktop direction at Citrix? They have more CTOs now than consoles. Doesn't seem like anything much is happening to enable stateless desktops. Does anybody really get it? While significant, Excalibur is not the answer as that's just fixing a problem with legacy Citrix IMA architecture. If nothing, can we please end this session and stop pretending that Citrix give a damn about the desktop and move on to the mobile session.

2) If Citrix is not going to enable stateless desktops, make incremental progress (i.e Ringcube), require expensive add ons (i.e app-v now that its dropped in Excalibur). Should we all just focus on stateful VDI only and get that to work better and cheaper? If Citrix tell us more bullshit how they are going to drop the cost of VDI then we should collectively sigh, as they are saying we are not solving for the stateless desktop.

- If so. Does Atlantis computing work? If so should Citrix acquire them to enable stateless desktops?

3) Can we finally tell all the VDI grim reapers to F-off? XenApp is not mainstream either and all you XenApp bigots spend hundreds and millions of dollars still every year. VDI is different and it will continue to grow because it solves a lot of problems that XenApp doesn't.

- People stating XenApp can be used for VDI have no clue what VDI is for? It's a different use case stupid. Published desktops are a different low cost niche use case that is great for XenApp silo user environments.

4) If Citrix bought Bromium, would it be just another Xen they did nothing with, or could they change the game and get into the security business end to end combined with their Netscaler assets?

- Assuming Simon Crosby hogs the microphone , which I am confident he will :-) Can he please explain why micro virtualization removes the need for Anti Virus beyond stating AV is just for SOX compliance. Serious question.

5) Now that AppSense has fired their management team without any explanation, the RES CEO has publicly has given up on UV and calls it a secondary focus as he trys' to excite us with an IT shop vision. What is the future for UV? Is it an opportunity for smaller players to fill the void? If Harry Labana is in the audience I'd love to hear what he thinks and ask what his next move is.

Mobile Panel

1) Why did Citrix spend $355M or so on a legacy MDM vendor? Is that good use of shareholder money? Is it just Citrix saying oh *** we are late, gotta do something and marketing will help us figure out how to brainwash all the fools we sell it to?

- MDM is not secure, its hackable, and provides a false sense of security and undifferentiated IP that is of low value.

2) What is the future of the mobile players. I.e Good, MDM/MAM. What is their future value proposition? i.e If Good/Airwatch/Mobile Iron go public, what is their perceived value to justify a market that supports a price. Clearly it's not MDM.

3) I bet the audience (including me) know very little about the difference between Citrix MAM or any other MAM. Very nascent understanding means a very slow adoption. Good news for MDM folks I guess. Jack hurry up and write up some of this stuff. Or is it another Ruben smackdown topic?

4) DropBox is not a problem that Sharefile will fix. DropBox is something people like using that needs to be enabled. What is so hard to understand about that? Enough of these B solutions. Citrix failed to buy Box, so a smarter move would be to enable something else that people want vs. attacking it. Box is your real problem, not DropBox.

5) Samsung Knox is just a license of mobile spaces I hear. AKA POS looking for revenue via OEM. Android will remain irrelevant for most enterprise use cases for at least 2 years.

re: VMware is releasing Horizon Mobile Android virtualization, and your phone might be capable of running it today!

Kata Tank — Fri, 17 May 2013 08:25:45 GMT

I don't see my smartphone of choice in the list of supported devices... No luck!

If you think that, today, most of the smartphones in enterprises (globally) are already BYO (some countries in Europe already are over 60%), don't think this type of techno will scale right regarding device support...

re: VMware is releasing Horizon Mobile Android virtualization, and your phone might be capable of running it today!

Naveed Makhani — Wed, 15 May 2013 23:42:28 GMT

I think the key benefit of mobile virtualization in the BYOD context is that it enables containment of enterprise data without requiring a 3rd-party container, app wrapping, or full device management (because you manage only the enterprise image). That said, there are lots of limitations that make me question its practicality, and I'm curious to hear what the community thinks about the technology's potential for enterprise adoption.

Given that the technology is Android-only, and applicable to a subset of devices and carriers, organizations will still need enterprise mobility solutions to manage their non-virtualized devices (iOS, Windows Phone, BlackBerry, Android), so that means an enterprise would need to bring on a second solution to manage their virtualized devices.

The alternative to having multiple solutions would be to use Horizon Mobile to manage all devices (assuming VMWare gets there on the other platforms), which is very similar to the BlackBerry strategy with BlackBerry Device Service and its ability to manage non-BB devices.

I wonder what enterprise profile would be most willing to bring in the VMWare infrastructure? Perhaps those that have not yet opened up their mobility programs to Android and want to begin with a restricted set of devices? But wouldn't these organizations also include KNOX devices in that list? Maybe enterprises who have not yet invested in an enterprise mobility solution would find this attractive.

I'm also curious how closed or open VMWare will make this...will they allow 3rd-party enterprise mobility providers to activate/provision and manage the image, or will VMWare use this as a control point to force themselves into the enterprise's management portfolio? Once the image is provisioned, the enterprise could probably use any MDM vendor to manage the enterprise image, but VMWare's infrastructure would still need to be around to perform updates, manage image-level policies, etc. At a price point of $125 per user (not verified), it'd be tough to justify using VMWare AND another MDM tool to manage the virtualized device, so you'd probably want to go with one or the other. But then you have some devices fully managed via your MDM tool and another set of virtualized devices fully managed via VMWare, which I think would make something simple like setting passcode policies more complex.

Finally, what's the long-term viability of mobile virtualization on Android if Google pushes its multi-user features further? Or if Samsung KNOX turns out to be great? Perhaps what we'll see is an evolution that leads to more employee choice -- they might be able to choose from full device management, container, or virtualization.

re: Who says Apple isn't enterprise focused? Check out the history of enterprise management improvements in iOS from 2007-2013.

jlscott — Wed, 15 May 2013 12:16:42 GMT

Apple have definitely made great strides in improving the enterprise manageability of their devices but it definitely needs to go further. Key improvements I would like to see are better application deployment methods and full control over all aspects of the system (e.g. why can I lock down a lot of apps but not Notepad?).

App deployment is not fit for enterprise because of the need to enter iTunes credentials on install. Apple could overcome this by allowing organisations to register one corporate ID and have it silently used (via MDM) for all corporate devices.

I would also like the ability to centrally manage and control individual app settings (not just restrictions via app wrapping).

re: Citrix launches XenMobile, but it's just a name change of Zenprise

msfathy — Sun, 12 May 2013 17:31:17 GMT

i have a question here , Does the new cirix EEM solution is covering the MAC devices or not ?

re: Why is it so difficult to manage Android? Here’s a history of MDM features from 2008-2013.

vgernyc — Wed, 01 May 2013 20:20:15 GMT

A while ago Motorola bought out an MDM vendor 3LM that made management extensions for Android. I was surprised to now read that Google has mothballed these MDM extensions. Many of Motorola's patents were also recently invalidated in a lawsuit with Microsoft. New Moto phones are MIA. Not sure what Google is smoking recently.

www.infoworld.com/.../google-kills-hope-android-security-3lm-retreat-207886

I wondering if Samsung will indeed fork Android eventually.

re: Why is it so difficult to manage Android? Here’s a history of MDM features from 2008-2013.

Jack Madden — Wed, 01 May 2013 17:09:52 GMT

Did you mean management extensions that MDM plugs into? Other OEMs also have APIs that go beyond the Device Admin API basics, but Samsung is by far the most robust and spending the most ad dollars on it.

MAM is interesting on Android because the more you build into the app level, the less you care abut the device management capabilities (and 3rd party email clients on Android can actually work in the background, unlike on iOS...but that's a future article :)

re: Why is it so difficult to manage Android? Here’s a history of MDM features from 2008-2013.

Brian Madden — Wed, 01 May 2013 16:12:36 GMT

I feel like I always hear about Samsung (with SAFE and KNOX) as the example of an Android manufacturer who's doing it right. What about the other big Android makers? Do they have any extensions that common MAM vendors plug into?