AppSense Adds Enhanced User Rights Management Capabilities to Its User Virtualization Platform

April 7, 2011

Tools

New release extends control to governance of ActiveX-based web software installations; delivers end user flexibility and personalization while controlling security and lowering IT support costs

NEW YORK--(BUSINESS WIRE)-- AppSense, the leading provider of user virtualization solutions, today announced it has extended its user rights management capabilities in its User Virtualization Platform. This new release extends control to governance of ActiveX-based web software installations. IT can now enable non-administrative users to install and update pre-approved, web-delivered software in a controlled manner without the need to grant full administrative user rights to the desktop, allowing for an increase in user productivity while also minimizing IT support costs.

User rights management simplifies and lowers the costs of managing desktops—whether physical, virtual or cloud-based—by extending the existing policy management capabilities already available in the AppSense platform and enabling the elevation or reduction of user rights on a user, application or business rule basis. This ensures that only specific users are able to have elevated rights for predetermined applications in controlled situations, enabling IT to effectively control the desktop while providing users the flexibility they need to configure and manage their desktop in a way that ensures maximum efficiency and security.

“AppSense solves the problem of user rights management and having local administrators within the enterprise – ensuring desktop security and reducing downtime and the associated support costs,” said Roy Illsley, principal analyst at Ovum.

New user rights management capabilities include:

Website-Level Installation Rights –enables IT to pre-approve known websites for users, authorizing them to download and install software from the approved site. This provides users with immediate access to common business applications such as Adobe Reader or GoToMeeting without application delivery bottlenecks. Users are automatically blocked from performing web-based software installations from all unapproved sources, reducing exposure to security vulnerabilities or system instability.
Application-Level Web Installation Rights – provides IT with the ability to control exactly what applications can be downloaded or prohibited from the pre-approved websites. This granular control ensures that only trusted versions of specific applications may be installed from the web by end users.
Trusted Ownership Account Assignment for Web-Installed Applications – enables Web-Installed Applications to execute in an environment already protected with existing AppSense Trusted Ownership functionality, by automatically changing file ownership of the web-installed application to a trusted owner account.
Pre-Configured Templates for Web Installation Rights– which enable IT teams that are extending web-based software installation rights to their end users to draw from a library of predefined templates for common business applications. Applying these templates saves time and provides the assurance that users are only gaining the minimum level of rights escalation required for productivity.

“The feedback we received after announcing user rights management in September 2010 was astounding and really illustrated the market requirement for this control as part of managing the user component of the desktop,” said Matt Muldoon, vice president of product management at AppSense. “At AppSense we keep a close eye on requests from both the user and IT Administrator perspective, which led to this release. Ultimately, it fits in perfectly with our mission to provide solutions that satisfy business requirements while also ensuring happy end users.”

Product Availability

These new user rights management capabilities are available now as part of the AppSense User Virtualization Platform. For more information, please contact info@appsense.com.

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About AppSense

AppSense, the leading provider of user virtualization solutions, makes physical and virtual desktop deployment possible by ensuring a seamless user experience across all delivery platforms. AppSense accelerates multi-platform desktop deployments by eliminating costly user management tools, enabling single-image application delivery, and ensuring users have the same experience from any desktop. AppSense technology is used around the world by companies such as JPMorgan Chase, Lowes, United Airlines, Wachovia and ESPN. AppSense has offices in New York and San Jose in the US, London and Manchester in the UK, and additional offices in Munich, Melbourne, Amsterdam, Paris and Oslo. For more information, visit www.appsense.com.