The best thing about Google’s Chrome OS — and there are a surprising number of good things to be said for it, is the fact that everything takes place automatically and in the clouds, without you needing to sweat things out. For instance, maintenance and app upgrades are all automatic and take place in the clouds so that only minimal action is required on your part.
However, what happens when you plan to use the device in an enterprise environment. There is a need to set policies and regulations that will be adhered to by all the connected devices. Today, VMware has announced a partnership with Google that will help companies do just that and set policies across Chromebooks. The reason behind VMware stepping into the game is pretty simple as well.
Enterprises don’t rely exclusively on Chromebooks. I mean of course, Google would love it if they did but the fact remains that they don’t. So, Google can not make policies and systems for all the different devices within the company’s ecosystem. For instance, an ecosystem may have all sorts of devices including those running the Chrome OS, Windows, OS X, Android and so on. As such, managing policies across all these operating systems requires a third party to step in and that is exactly where VMware steps into the game.
With this latest collaboration, companies can deploy VMware’s Workspace One to set up policies, control who accesses what and manage identities all from a single position. Neither the IT department not the end user need to trouble themselves about variable operating systems and environments. All of them can be managed from the same environment and policies across all set simultaneously.
The ability was already available via Workspace One for a slew of operating systems. However, today’s collaboration means that Chromebooks are now included as well. This extends Workspace One’s capabilities to most major OS’s and makes it easier for organizations using VMware to deploy Chromebooks within their infrastructures.
Google and VMware will continue deepening their partnership. Google hopes to eventually bring different applications onto the Chromebook and have Workspace One set policies across these apps as well.
