Last week, VMware revealed what we believe is the new era of work: the digital workspace. At its heart, VMware Workspace ONE is the next evolution of end-user computing—an innovative ecosystem designed to strike a balance between an intuitive end-user experience and IT’s mandate to enable secure “anytime, any device, anywhere” workforce productivity. Today, AirWatch 8.3 advances that vision with updates purpose-built to empower both users and IT with the solutions they need to advance mobile work into the new era.
[Related: Noah Wasmer on How the Digital Workspace Changes the Way Work Gets Done]
A Smarter, Simpler User Experience
The end user is at the core of every successful enterprise technology program. If the technology doesn’t fit a user’s workflow or is too difficult to use, workers will not adopt that technology—and the enterprise’s investment is wasted. Employees expect work technology to mirror the simple, easy-to-use experience of technology in their personal lives. With AirWatch 8.3, we’ve integrated that consumer-simple experience into the way work gets done.
Unified Access with the Workspace ONE App
To deliver mobile solutions that streamline access to applications, today’s AirWatch release brings consumer-simple and streamlined 
experiences to enterprise apps. The Workspace ONE app allows users to access any application—native, web or remote—through a single application catalog across every device. Mobile single sign-on (SSO) allows users to access these apps without passwords or complex PINs using patent-pending VMware SATS (secure app token system) technology. VMware developed and patented the SATS technology to enable true SSO across desktop, mobile, native and cloud applications. This unified app catalog gives users a consolidated process and experience to access all corporate apps in a secure mobile application management (MAM) container.
Sign up for the AirWatch 8.3 webinar here.
Earning Trust with the Expanded AirWatch Privacy First Program
One of the most important facets of a successful business mobility program is earning users’ trust, especially in a bring-your-own environment. AirWatch 8.3 expands the AirWatch Privacy First Program with a user-facing website and visual privacy app to provide transparent education to eliminate privacy concerns. The new whatisairwatch.com website educates users on the value of BYOD and that AirWatch’s mobile management systems separate work and personal data, preventing IT from capturing personal information, such as texts, personal emails, photos and more.
To further promote user trust, especially for corporate-owned devices and desktops, the AirWatch administrator console now has a Privacy Officer role to delegate privacy policy management, and only the Privacy Officer—not the IT administrator—can edit privacy configurations, adding another layer of protection for end users.
Faster, More Intuitive Content Collaboration with Content Locker 3.0
As promised last month, AirWatch 8.3 includes a redesigned user experience update to Content Locker. Our popular mobile content management platform has been completely redesigned for iPad and iPhone to deliver a consumer-simple experience with enterprise-grade security. The speedier, more intuitive navigation now helps users:
![airwatch content locker redesign]()
More quickly and easily access content from a mobile device;- Access the new User Hub to quickly gain access to shared and draft files, so they can easily continue working on documents and files;
- Search across all files in all depositories;
- Filter and sort results based on relevant search criteria; and
- Preview videos directly from the homepage.
Register for the Content Locker 3.0 webinar to experience the new UI firsthand.
Smarter Data Protection with Enhanced Intelligence, Security & Management
As the new digital workspace enhances and simplifies end-user experience, AirWatch 8.3 is packed full of new, innovative features that enable IT to intrinsically enhance security and management. The new release focuses on ensuring data is protected, enabling IT with a comprehensive platform and surfacing data that enables smarter workflows.
Smarter Workflows with Insights & Intelligence
Through our work with over 62,000 customers and mobile deployments, AirWatch 8.3 introduces intelligent, wizard-driven workflows called industry templates. With a single click, IT admins can access simple, smart and data-driven templates that identify the typical workflows for a given industry. The new industry templates provide a turnkey way to enable the best apps, configurations and policies for business initiatives. To utilize the templates, an IT admin simply selects their industry, chooses the business initiative they are looking to implement and AirWatch recommends and assigns industry-specific apps and policies into a consolidated template for quick deployment. Watch the video below to see the power and simplicity of these workflows in action.
[Related: Getting Ready for AirWatch 8.3]
Security & Compliance
To better secure and protect corporate data, we’ve built two unique features into 8.3: conditional access to work apps and VMware NSX for AirWatch integration.
Think about how difficult it is to restrict access to typical cloud applications, such as Salesforce, Workday or Office 365, for only 
managed apps or devices. With AirWatch 8.3, new conditional access features puts IT back in control of the cloud applications and makes it easy to ensure all access to these systems can be revoked and remotely wiped. The new authentication module ensures that only compliant, managed mobile apps can access an organization’s business applications. Leveraging SATS technology and native operating system (OS) controls, IT now can provide conditional access to every app in the app store, with no SDK, app wrapping or code changes required.
Access to internal resources within the datacenter must also be restricted to only trusted devices and applications. AirWatch 8.3 expands the VMware NSX for AirWatch integration, providing advanced security between AirWatch-managed devices and the NSX micro-segmented datacenter. Administrators can dynamically set policies between AirWatch and NSX from a single console, securing their digital workspace by limiting mobile apps, data and device footprints inside the datacenter and corporate network.
Management & Automation across the Device Ecosystem
Last year, AirWatch revealed the industry’s first EMM approach to managing Windows 10 devices, completely disrupting the traditional approach to PC lifecycle management. IT now has the agility and flexible controls they need to make Windows device management as simple and easy as deploying mobility projects.
With 8.3, we’ve built upon our initial Windows 10 support to include Windows Update enhancements and remote management for 
both desktops and mobile devices within the AirWatch console. Windows 10 Mobile receives several capabilities we’ve seen for desktop, including Passport for Work and health attestation. Administrators can also set policies for user verification, including biometric gesture, by leveraging AirWatch integration with Passport for Work, while monitoring device health and detecting compromised devices with AirWatch compliance engine and health attestation capabilities. We’ve also added AirWatch Tunnel for Windows, enabling per-app VPN security to Windows apps.
Consumer Simple. Enterprise Secure.
Many, many more incredible features and enhancements are included in 8.3, such as product provisioning, API and performance enhancements. Delve into every feature on myAirWatch, and sign up for the AirWatch 8.3 webinar here.
With AirWatch 8.3, our ultimate goal—and the goal of all releases past and present—is helping enterprises equip users with the secure technology they need to work smarter and drive business objectives. The next step in this journey is the digital workspace, a consumer-inspired, enterprise-secured ecosystem built to delight users with more productive, adaptive workflows. Our new AirWatch release, combined with Workspace ONE, truly ushers in the new era of business mobility.
Stay tuned to the AirWatch Blog over the next few weeks as our product managers offer deep dives into industry templates, NSX for AirWatch integration, Content Locker 3.0, Privacy First and the Workspace ONE app catalog.
