Omnissa found its voice in the post-VMware era
Omnissa One 2025 highlighted developments like App Volumes for physical devices and server management in Workspace One. This is a big shift from previous vague announcements.
I was eager to attend Omnissa One 2025 this week to see how the company would lay out its vision at an in-person event more than a year after its launch party -- an event that I thought missed the mark. This year, it did not disappoint.
At last year's event, I felt like Omnissa could've done a better job of focusing on the practical questions that customers had regarding the transition from VMware to Broadcom to Omnissa, as well as the current state -- and direction of -- its products. Instead, it focused on broad-strokes AI that left a lot of questions on the table.
This week, that all changed, and Omnissa not only answered the questions many people had -- it took a few moments to throw some barbs at "monopolistic pricing schemes," "licensing," and "bloated tools." It's language I hadn't heard the company use before, which indicates that things are a bit different now.
Here's a look at a few of my key takeaways. You can check the Omnissa blogs for all the announcements.
Workspace One is now decoupled from MDM
One of my big questions heading into this was, "How can Omnissa continue to be successful with Workspace One amidst Intune adoption?" This has long been a challenge for any company that isn't Microsoft, but being part of VMware opened up some opportunity for a quid pro quo to carve out room for competition. Without the VMware parts, the dynamic surely changed.
The answer is, in American football parlance, an end-around. The challenges came from conflicts in using the MDM APIs in Windows, so the solution was to decouple Workspace One from MDM. This is shocking if you go back to the AirWatch days, but it makes sense. Plus, it frees Omnissa up to implement its roadmap without having to navigate some rather large roadblocks. This also means anyone can run it on any device, even on devices with Intune or Config Manager -- a significant change from the Workspace One of the VMware era.
Finally, this next-gen approach to endpoint management actually enables Workspace One to work with Horizon, including building VMs and host pools using Workspace One with Freestyle. (The trick to make MDM work with virtual desktops? Don't use MDM!)
Workspace One will manage servers, too
Though I primarily cover endpoint devices and stay out of the data center, there are some indications that organizations are starting to think about the servers that they manage as though they were endpoints, at least in terms of management and security. It appears Omnissa is picking up on this, too, and at the event, the company announced that server management with Workspace One is in limited availability.
Autonomous endpoint management
It's still early days for autonomous endpoint management (AEM). There is a lot to be written on the topic, but it aligns perfectly with one of the main initiatives at the intersection of endpoint management and security: consolidation.
Consolidation was a core theme throughout the keynote, and a big part of the consolidation story for Omnissa is its Autonomous Workspace vision. With it, the company is entering the autonomous endpoint management fray alongside the likes of Adaptiva, NinjaOne, Tanium and more. While the actual AEM term was conspicuously absent, I got clarification later that Omnissa views it as a component of Autonomous Workspace, which includes other things like apps, virtual desktops and even servers.
Like everyone building AEM technology, this is a mix of vision and reality. The most tangible autonomous capability shown was Workspace One Vulnerability Defense, which ingests vulnerability data, prioritizes it based on risk level, and deploys automations with a degree of autonomy.
(This seems like the logical first entry point, and NinjaOne is doing the same thing with its recently announced Autonomous Patch Management.)
There's a lot more to unpack here, but AEM is an area I've recently conducted research into, and 96% of organizations expressed some level of interest, deployment, or piloting of AEM. This high level of interest is tied to many factors, which boil down to four key themes:
- Efficiency and automation.
- Security and risk mitigation.
- Intelligence and decision-making.
- Compliance and visibility.
Still, if I had to sum up the interest in AEM with one word, it would be "consolidation." There are too many tools. Too many alerts. Too many signals. Too much data. Too many processes. AEM represents a way to get a grip on all of that, increasing visibility, decreasing mean time to repair, and improving the processes and workflows that comprise endpoint management and security.
Stay tuned to this space!
App Volumes is a core pillar of Omnissa
I've been a big fan of app management in general, and App Volumes specifically, for many years. Historically, App Volumes was treated as an offshoot of Horizon, which makes sense given it was only used in virtual desktops. Version 4 represented a large upgrade that eliminated many of the problems that plagued it in earlier versions, and since then, Omnissa has continued to build out the product.
Today's App Volumes includes new features like Apps on Demand and a broader set of tools to help with the entire application lifecycle. With the release of Apps Essentials, it's decoupled from Horizon, so anyone -- even Citrix customers -- can get the benefits without having to buy/deploy the full Horizon stack.
At Omnissa One, the team finally announced that App Volumes would work for physical devices in the coming months, and, given its ability to package, deploy and update apps, you can see where this will factor into the broader Autonomous Workspace vision.
Conclusion
There is a lot more to unpack, like what Omnissa has done with digital employee experience, the capabilities in Freestyle, how Omnissa views AI -- and is using it in intentional ways, not just AI washing things -- and the entirely new ModStack architecture upon which everything is going to be built.
The key takeaway for me, though, is that Omnissa has a clear, sharp direction now -- something I wasn't able to say a year ago. It seems to have the right pieces to address the top concerns that I observe at the intersection of endpoint management and security. Omnissa is not alone, so its ability to execute on the plan and deliver products that work and show immediate value will be critical, but it sure is an interesting time in this space.
Gabe Knuth is the principal analyst covering end-user computing for Enterprise Strategy Group, now part of Omdia.
Enterprise Strategy Group is part of Omdia. Its analysts have business relationships with technology vendors.
