commonIT blog

It is cool to be cool vendor!

It’s official since few days, Gartner announced CommonIT as a Cool Vendor on Cloud Services Brokerage Enablers Market!

For more information, check out the “Cool Vendors in Cloud Services Brokerage Enablers, 2012” report.

Having shunned the rest of the mobile communications industry at Mobile World Congress in Barcelona last month, Apple has finally announced the third iteration of the iPad. From our point of view, the good news is it still won’t run Flash. But putting CommonIT’s business opportunity to one side for a few minutes, what does this version offer enterprise users?

Very little, in fact. The key new features are essentially a quad-core graphics processor and a higher-resolution display. We’re not going to sneer at improved performance and higher visual impact, but these improvements still target, quite clearly, the consumer market. Basically your games will run faster and smoother, and you can watch HDTV. There’s the 4G/LTE communications, too, but try finding an operator in Europe…

None of which means the CIO can safely ignore the product. When Steve Jobs unveiled the original iPad just two years ago, Apple rocked the consumer tech market and simultaneously opened up a whole new set of challenges for the corporate IT director already struggling to manage executives and their iPhones. BYOD is here to stay, even if the technology and policies to manage BYOD in the corporate environment are still evolving.

The real challenge, though, is elsewhere. The consumerization of IT isn’t just about the devices your employees are bringing into the office. The user interface is changing, too. Business applications today are all designed around a three-way user interface dating from the mid-1980s: video, keyboard, mouse. But the keyboard and mouse have disappeared from consumer devices. User expectations are evolving, quickly, to tactile, point-swipe interaction. Before long, the mouse and keyboard will make as much sense to your end users as a rotary telephone dial. How are enterprise applications going to adapt?

It’s always a pleasure to spend a few days in Barcelona. Though when it’s for Mobile World Congress, the tapas and nightlife give way to the exhausting reality of navigating some 1500 exhibitors sprawled over an area about twice the size of Camp Nou, Barcelona FC’s vast stadium.

On the opening day of this year’s Mobile World Congress Telefónica, the Spanish operator, joined Mozilla to announce the Open Web Devices platform, with a reference mobile phone architecture allowing HTML5 applications API access to core device capabilities — paving the way for pure HTML5 smartphones. Mozilla demonstrated the technology at the show on a Samsung Galaxy S2 stripped of its Android OS by Mozilla engineers.

The Mozilla Foundation first started talking about Boot to Gecko last summer. The idea is to offer a native web environment for mobile devices, similar to Google’s Chromebooks, a model Google isn’t (yet?) bringing to mobiles because that’s where Android goes. So what will your next smartphone be running — iOS, Android, Windows, or Gecko? And will your tablet be running the same OS?

Our take? From the enterprise point of view, rather than representing a step to increased standardization, this is more likely to be one more level of fragmentation in the market. And one more reason for an enterprise browser solution, capable of standardizing enterprise usage and enforcing policy whatever device is in the hands or on the desk of the end user.

A recent report from IDG Connect, iPad for Business Survey 2012 (needs registration to download) offers a fascinating insight into iPad take-up in the enterprise environment. The iPad for Business Survey focuses on professionals and their relationship with the iPad. Is it primarily a business tool, or an extension to personal usage? Who pays – user or employer?

Survey results show some interesting variations from continent to continent. If 2011 was the year BYOD took off, 2012 is shaping up to be the year corporate IT starts getting the tools to manage and discriminate professional and personal usage on unmanaged personal devices.

Google started it. When Google launched the Chrome browser some three years ago, one of the key security features was automatic updating. New code releases are downloaded in the background while the browser is running, and applied the next time the user re-starts the browser.

Google argues that this boosts security, compared with the splash screens and user dialogs of other browsers. Faced with the choice of (1) waiting for update code to download, waiting for the update to install, and waiting for the browser to restart, or (2) clicking “Cancel” and continuing to the page they wanted to reach when they launched the browser, many (too many) users choose option 2. The result? Out-of-date browser versions with unpatched security vulnerabilities.

Microsoft has now announced the introduction of silent updating for Internet Explorer, and Mozilla expects to bring out silent updates for Firefox in an as-yet unspecified future release.

Not everybody’s happy. Enterprise IT operations, particularly end-user support teams, will be in the front line when users find themselves unable to access a business-critical application which turns out not to be compatible with the latest version of the user’s favorite browser.

As long as users were primarily sat in front of corporate-issue MS Windows desktops, updates were under the control of the IT department. New browser releases could be tested against business applications for compatibility before being deployed to the desktop. In the age of BYOD, however, support and maintenance of the end-point environment is in the hands of the user; you can’t impose a locked-down corporate configuration on a device owned by the employee.

AirShip, the enterprise browser, has been designed to give control back to the IT department. The AirShip browser can be installed on a range of end-point technologies. It supports concurrent execution of multiple browser configurations, centrally managed and deployed to end user devices. With AirShip, the user connects to enterprise applications using the optimum browser release and configuration as defined by the system administrator. And AirShip can happily coexist with industry-standard browsers, so end-users can enjoy the latest release of their favorite browser for personal use while AirShip delivers a managed environment for professional use.

Launched on the US market mid-November, the Amazon Kindle Fire tablet has yet to cross the Atlantic. With its 7” display, a mere 8GB storage capacity, and WiFi but no 3G connectivity, it’s unlikely to be seen as an adequate alternative for a BYOD iPad in the corporate environment.

What’s got us interested in a device that clearly targets the consumer market (why else launch it just in time for Christmas?) is Silk, the native web browser. To quote from Amazon’s web site:

“Amazon Silk is a revolutionary, cloud-accelerated browser that uses a “split browser” architecture to leverage the computing speed and power of the Amazon Web Services cloud. Supports Adobe® Flash® Player.”

That last sentence is clearly targeted at the iPad; if you’ve been following us you know how to solve that problem. So what about this “revolutionary, cloud-accelerated browser”, then?

On closer inspection, it turns out that Amazon has adopted very much the same approach to browser architecture that we’ve been offering for nearly three years. Silk, like CommonIT’s AirShip product, selectively executes browser components in the cloud, streaming the result to the device. When we originally developed this approach for the Virtual Browser product, the objective was to deliver a highly secure web browser by isolating browser execution from the end point device. We quickly saw that this also offered the opportunity to boost browser performance compared with a natively executed browser, especially on older or less powerful devices such as battery-powered mobiles and tablets.

Amazon has taken the same approach for performance reasons. Amazon, of course, has a cloud ready to use for this. So the cloud-based browser, an approach originally developed by CommonIT, is now going mainstream. It’s nice to have company! But if what you need is a browser for enterprise deployment, offering centralized management, multi-platform support (user and server side), directory integration, multiple concurrent browser configurations… there’s still only one solution.

In a rare show of Anglo-French synchronization, the IPExpo event in London last month was mirrored by IPConvergence running at the same time in Paris. Both shows pitched themselves to visitors as the meeting place for cloud, communications, and mobility.

In Paris, cloud infrastructure services – IaaS – and unified communications dominated the show, with large stands showcasing the Cloud offerings of a number of (ex-) ISPs, hosters, and telcos. The London event was stronger on solutions vendors with sponsor “villages” highlighting this or that vendor’s solutions and partner ecosystem.

But while vendors, operators, integrators and just about anybody trying to sell IT solutions is pushing the Cloud, where are the customers?

Faced with a plethora of offerings, the customer is anxiously trying to work out what the best solutions are for their business- and how to fit those solutions together. Cloud computing may one day boost agility, but right now it’s doing a good job of boosting confusion.

This is where Cloud Services Brokerage fits in. The Cloud Services Broker is a specialized third party who can identify, select, and integrate multiple cloud services according to individual customer needs.

What does this have to do with CommonIT? With a new solution, AirShip, CommonIT complements the Cloud Services Brokerage with a focus on the end user. Multiple services from different clouds are likely to be even more confusing for the end user than for the CIO. With AirShip, browser configurations and connectivity are managed from the datacenter or in the cloud, with no end-user intervention. As cloud-based services evolve and migrate between private or public clouds, AirShip allows the enterprise or the service provider to deliver reliable, transparent connectivity for the end user.

Bob Cannan, CEO, Eagle Productivity: "The Apple iPad doesn’t support Adobe Flash. Our users are crying out for a solution.”

Eagle Productivity, based in upstate New York, has built a successful business around the development of ongoing professional training with a particular focus on the needs of the pharmaceutical sector. Eagle relies heavily on Adobe Flash technology to deliver rich, compelling web-based content meeting the needs of highly mobile professionals with little time for classic classroom-style training programs.

In early 2011 Eagle Productivity found itself faced with a new challenge. Those highly mobile professionals were among the most enthusiastic adopters of a new highly mobile consumer device — the Apple iPad. A device which doesn’t support Adobe Flash. The Eagle Productivity development team started looking into solutions that would allow them to meet the needs of their end users. When Brett de Tingo, Creative Director at Eagle Productivity, came across the Virtual Browser technology he wasted little time in contacting CommonIT to request an evaluation and proof of concept.

Working through summer 2011 engineers at CommonIT and Eagle Productivity collaborated to develop EverTrain, a customized, Eagle-branded iPad app based on Virtual Browser. After installing EverTrain the user enters a code which launches their connection to the corporate Learning Management Server (LMS). The LMS delivers content and manages progress through the training program according to the user profile. No re-engineering is needed on the LMS; Virtual Browser executes Flash content in the Cloud and displays the results in the app on the user’s iPad.

“Support for increasingly diverse end-point devices is a key differentiator in delivering continuing education to professional users. With the Virtual Browser technology, Eagle Productivity has taken a leadership position in the market” says Bob Cannan, CEO, Eagle Productivity.

The Eagle Productivity EverTrain app for the Apple iPad is available immediately for Eagle Productivity customers.

It’s now widely recognized that the browser is one of the leading weaknesses in the enterprise information security environment, increasingly under attack as criminals race to develop exploits for each new vulnerability faster than the browser vendors can patch the problem.

But the problem isn’t limited to the browser itself. The browser hosts mutliple add-ons and helper applications in an extremely complex runtime environment to offer the user seamless access to rich media content (PDF, webex, video streaming and so on). These add-on programs have (naturally) their own vulnerabilities. Adobe and Oracle issue frequent updates for their leading browser add-ons, Adobe Acrobat Reader, Adobe Flash Player, and Java. Recently, Microsoft announced that MMPC (Microsoft Malware Protection Center) had blocked over 6 million Java attacks in a single quarter. The problem for the enterprise is that any one of these updates may render the browser environment incompatible with business-critical applications – and it may be practically impossible to back out of the update. To avoid this situation many enterprises now freeze end-user deployments with a specific, tested Java release or service pack level of Microsoft’s Internet Explorer despite the security risks of not running the latest updates.

The winners, in this situation, are the security software vendors, continuously developing new solutions to install on the end-point platform (antivirus, antispyware, anti-malware…), each one slowing the PC down a little more, and mostly incapable of preventing an attack launched against the latest 0-day vulnerability. One way of resolving the problem would be to deploy a separate machine for each application, on every user’s desktop; isolated and correctly configured, security and performance could be optimized — for a certain cost. Fortunately for the bottom line, there’s the Virtual Browser solution.

Version 2.1 of the Virtual Browser solution is now available. Among the many enhancements, we’re particularly proud of the work we’ve done to improve the way video streaming is handled (already discussed here), with automatic detection of embedded video and data compression optimized in real time. The problem with video is that when page rendering is taking place remotely rather than on the user’s system, the fluidity and continuity of real-time elements such as video can suffer. It’s important to us that the end-user experience of increasingly dynamic web sites and applications is identical whether they are using Virtual Browser or a classic locally-installed and executing web browser, so we chose to invest significant R&D efforts in the development of new techniques to deliver a superior video delivery mechanism for the Virtual Browser client. Not only have we achieved our objective with release 2.1, we’ve also dramatically reduced bandwidth requirements, by up to a factor of 10 for certain types of streaming. This is a key breakthrough in its own right as with the rapid uptake of the Apple iPad - a Virtual Browser iPad client has also been released - the number of users on 3G networks is set to accelerate. With Virtual Browser, any web application, including Flash-based applications and those supported only in IE, is accessible from any end-point device - including Apple’s.

Other new features in version 2.1 include support for VNC, complementing the already supported Citrix and TSE remote desktop environments. With this technology Virtual Browser can be deployed as a universal telecommute/mobile office environment, delivering remote access to the corporate intranet, web services, virtual desktop environments and even physical desktop systems.

Version 2.1 also offers new levels of flexibility in user interface management. A key feature of the Virtual Browser architecture is that the rendering engine and user interface are separate entities. This means the system administrator can decide what look-and-feel is presented to the user independently of the underlying browser technology and plugins.  For example, with version 2.1 the user can be presented with an Internet Explorer-like user interface while the Virtual Browser appliance is in fact executing Firefox. In the enterprise environment where the slightest change to an application UI can impact productivity as ingrained users habits are challenged, this feature can greatly facilitate application updates and migration while limiting the impact on the end-user population.