Omnissa, the company that acquired VMware’s end-user compute portfolio, is moving beyond its traditional territory of managing endpoint devices and into server management.
The company quietly released a beta of a Windows Server management tool in April and told would-be users it will allow them to provision and manage any Windows Server from 2016 onwards, compile full inventories of installed Server Roles and Features, and distribute software.
Omnissa senior VP for products Bharath Rangarajan told The Register the move into server management was requested by customers who like the company’s PC management tools and want to use them for more devices – including Apple Watches and Apple TVs.
Rangarajan said Omnissa is “working closely with Apple” to apply its management chops to the fruit company’s consumer devices, as many frontline workers use Apple Watches to access corporate data or one-time passwords, and Apple TVs are increasingly prevalent in meeting rooms as they can run Zoom, a browser, or custom apps. (Apple management stalwart Jamf already offers similar services.)
Virtual reality devices like Microsoft’s HoloLens and Apple’s Vision Pro are also targets.
So are hypervisors other than VMware’s.
“We have built an architecture that can target any hypervisor,” Rangarajan told The Register, a major move away from VMware’s vSphere-only approach to its end-user compute portfolio.
“KVM is the most popular request we get,” Rangarajan said, adding that support for OpenStack and OpenShift are also on the agenda.
Customers want to run Omnissa’s wares on different hypervisors so they don’t get stuck vSphere silos, or because Broadcom’s massive price increases and licensing changes for VMware have given them a “higher urgency” reason to move.
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And naturally, because we’re at the peak of the AI hype cycle, Omnissa is working on a conversational chatbot that will handle requests such as identifying all endpoints running a certain version of an application, or allow admins to search the company’s knowledge base when they seek technical info. The bot, named “Omni”, will debut later this year.
Rangarajan said Omnissa is also exploring how to blend device managemen