November 5, 2024
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Sachin Sharma
Director of Product Marketing, Horizon
Sachin Sharma is a Director of Product Marketing at Omnissa, where he leads product marketing for Horizon, a multi-cloud desktop and app virtualization platform. He has over 20 years of experience in various marketing, pre-sales, IT consulting, and systems management roles with Nimsoft (acquired by CA Technologies) and Wanova (acquired by VMware). He holds degrees in B.S. in Computer Science and Engineering, and Economics from the University of California at Davis. Follow him on Twitter/X @sachin_d_sharma.
Omnissa has been named a Leader in the IDC MarketScape Worldwide Virtual Client Computing 2024 Vendor Assessment* (2024, IDC #US51271924). This marks the seventh time IDC has consecutively recognized Horizon® in its publication. It is even more meaningful this year to be recognized as a Leader now that we have started our journey as an independent company!
Source: IDC, 2024.
For the purposes of this analysis, IDC divided potential key measures for success into two primary categories: capabilities and strategies.
Positioning on the y-axis reflects the vendor's current capabilities and menu of services and how well aligned the vendor is to customer needs. The capabilities category focuses on the capabilities of the company and product today, here and now. Under this category, IDC analysts will look at how well a vendor is building/delivering capabilities that enable it to execute its chosen strategy in the market.
Positioning on the x-axis, or strategies axis, indicates how well the vendor's future strategy aligns with what customers will require in three to five years. The strategies category focuses on high-level decisions and underlying assumptions about offerings, customer segments, and business and go-to-market plans for the next three to five years.
The size of the individual vendor markers in the IDC MarketScape represents the market share of each individual vendor within the specific market segment being assessed.
IDC defines virtual client computing (VCC) as software that “enables a client computing model that leverages a range of brokering software and display protocols to enable server-based client computing and improves upon the limitations associated with the traditional distributed desktop environment.” The IDC MarketScape measures vendor characteristics based on discussions, surveys, and interviews with market leaders, participants, and end users. Being recognized as a Leader by IDC again demonstrates our commitment to meeting and exceeding customer expectations with impactful and critical solutions that drive automation, simplify app delivery, and enhance security.
IT organizations use Omnissa Horizon for secure delivery of virtual desktops and apps — whether on-premises, in the cloud, or hybrid and multi-cloud — giving users a great experience anywhere, anytime, and on any device. Horizon is part of the Omnissa Platform, which integrates our industry-leading Virtual Desktops & Apps, Unified Endpoint Management, Digital Employee Experience, and Security & Compliance solutions to promote secure and seamless digital workspace experiences.
The IDC MarketScape for VCC report highlights several Omnissa strengths, with three that closely align with our core strategic initiatives.
Reducing TCO with automation
The IDC MarketScape for VCC report notes Omnissa Horizon’s extensive AI/ML capabilities and support integrated into Workspace ONE® Intelligence. Workspace ONE Intelligence, now known as Omnissa Intelligence, is one of many services integrated with the Horizon Control Plane, which offers unified management for any Horizon deployment, including on-premises and in the cloud. Experience Management for Horizon uses the Omnissa Intelligence data lake to surface insights into end-user experiences that impact productivity and user satisfaction, such as long log-on times to virtual desktops. By using an orchestration platform like Freestyle Orchestrator, workflows can be triggered to create ServiceNow tickets or Slack messages for IT to investigate the cause of long log-on times. If IT finds that the Horizon agent in the impacted virtual desktops needs to be updated to correct the log-on time issue, the Agent Auto Upgrade feature can automatically upgrade the Horizon agent in the desktops IT chooses. This is just one example of end-to-end remediation and automation that improves end-user productivity to lower Day 2 management costs.
Simplifying app lifecycle management
In the IDC MarketScape report, “Customers noted dramatic improvements in Omnissa’s already strong application virtualization capabilities.” This is a great testament to the investments we’ve made in app delivery and lifecycle management with Omnissa App Volumes. Customers use App Volumes to simplify app lifecycle management across VDI, DaaS, and RDSH environments based on separating app management from the OS image. With this modern model, the number of images IT needs to manage is drastically reduced, saving management time. By deploying the same app copy to many virtual desktops or app hosts, storage costs can also be lowered. With recent innovations in App Volumes, including Apps on Demand and support for app lifecycle management across persistent virtual desktops, costs for any type of desktop or app deployment can be reduced even further.
Optimizing security and experience
The primary use case for desktop and app virtualization continues to be security and compliance. However, customers may need more than desktop and app virtualization to secure their environment because today’s attack surface has different types of devices, user segments, and apps in use. This is where the Omnissa Platform shines. The IDC MarketScape report points out that our integrated endpoint management and threat defense capabilities help create a single platform for all end-user computing needs across a wide range of use cases. Workspace ONE UEM is our flagship solution for unified endpoint management and security, while products like Workspace ONE Mobile Threat Defense help secure users across different devices. Combining these with Horizon allows more security and compliance use cases to be addressed using the Omnissa Platform. Finally, we offer a seamless user experience to access any type of app and desktop using Workspace ONE Intelligent Hub.
Download the excerpt about Omnissa Horizon in this year’s IDC MarketScape for VCC report here. To learn more about Omnissa Horizon, visit https://www.omnissa.com/platform/virtual-desktops-and-apps/.
* This IDC report was published on June 21, 2024. Omnissa, formerly the VMware End-User Computing Division, launched as an independent, global software company and digital workspace leader on July 1, 2024, and is not currently affiliated with VMware or Broadcom.