IGEL Announces Work from Home (WFH) Kit to Ease and Accelerate Working from Home

Making the Difference Between “Working at Home” and Working from Home”

We all know that in recent weeks organizations, where possible, have enabled their employees to work at home. For many this has involved allowing employees to take their office PC or laptop home, providing access to Office 365, and where needed ensuring that VPN connections are configured and licensed.

Sadly, at this moment in time we do not know how long this current isolation or ‘shelter at home’ period will last. But for those who are fortunate enough to be able to work from home (WFH), it’s demonstrating that employees can be productive and that corporate culture around WFH is changing. In fact, the “Gartner CFO Survey Reveals 74% Intend to Shift Some Employees to Remote Work Permanently” press release talks about companies moving “at least 5% of their previously on-site workforce to permanently remote positions post-COVID-19.”  We are witnessing a sea-change, and it’s happening at lightning speed.

As students and employees become familiar with ‘working at home,’ IT departments are now grappling with how they can enable a true ‘work from home’ experience. This subtle change in terminology is an important step as IT and organizations rethink their business continuity plans, plan for the future and ensure that regardless of where people choose to work, their experience is consistent, secure and performant.

Virtual desktop infrastructure (VDI) and Desktop as a Service (DaaS) are enabling organizations to accelerate work from home strategies. Providing a centrally managed platform which is arguably easier to deploy, manage and secure.

And while VDI and DaaS offer many benefits, organizations, quite rightly are concerned about the endpoint.  For those looking at deploying a secure workspace at the edge, IGEL has an operating system and management platform ideally suited for Office 365, VDI and DaaS solutions.  To help organizations enable and accelerate their true work from home strategy – rather than simply supporting users that work at home – IGEL today is making several important announcements, product updates and offerings.

IGEL Work from Home Kit

Available immediately, the IGEL “Work from Home Kit,” provides both existing and new customers the ability to deploy and manage the IGEL OS across the internet securely, enabling IT organizations to manage and support thousands of endpoints. The WFH kit includes everything required to deploy IGEL OS to remote employees, including the UD Pocket (IGEL on USB) which enables even unmanaged, older devices to dual boot into a secure managed OS. The WFH kit also includes the IGEL Cloud Gateway which allows access from anywhere connected to the internet, secure configuration, updates and shadowing. The WHF kit is available at 50% off the list price of the combined offerings for customers who have previously purchased IGEL’s Workspace Edition.

In summary, the ‘Work From Home’ kit provides customers with the following:

• An IGEL OS License including IGEL Universal Management Suite (UMS)

• Subscription to the Enterprise Management Pack for 12 months
  • Includes the IGEL Cloud Gateway for remote management over the internet
• An IGEL UD Pocket
  • Allows users to dual boot existing unmanaged or out-of-date devices to IGEL OS 11
• 12 months maintenance on the above product set

Trade Up Program Makes IGEL OS 11 Easy to Adopt*

IGEL appreciates that customers running older versions of our operating systems may be looking for increased support for newer cloud-delivered desktops and newer endpoint technology integrations. IGEL OS 11 provides a secure workspace environment allowing access to Office 365, Teams, Citrix, VMware, Amazon WorkSpaces and Microsoft WVD.

To help those existing customers deliver newer platforms, support enhanced graphics and custom partitions, IGEL is offering IGEL OS 11 licenses as part of a trade up program to all customers, regardless of IGEL OS version, who sign up for three or more years of active maintenance.  Moving to IGEL OS 11 ensures that customers can deploy the latest version of IGEL solutions and can benefit from over 80+ integrated technologies.

Customers without active maintenance can buy into three years maintenance and incur NO additional license costs. This is available to customers with IGEL hardware and software, including those on older versions of thin and zero clients.  Specifically, the trade up program is available to customers who have:

• LX5
• OS 10
• Windows embedded
• IGEL Zero clients (IZ range)

IGEL OS 11.3.500 Features for a New Work-From-Home World

Released last week the latest version of the IGEL OS, 11.3.500, provides two essential updates to further support those working from home and changes how the OS is deployed and evaluated.

First, IGEL OS 11.3.500 now supports ‘Custom Partitions,’ as standard, something previously only available in the separately-sold Enterprise Management Pack. Custom Partitions allow for third-party applications to be installed into a separate partition of the OS, enabling home working applications such as Zoom, RingCentral and additional web browsers to be deployed to remote endpoints.

Second, 11.3.500 also introduces a 30 day “Starter license.” This provides an “out of the box” working environment which doesn’t require registration or a license to be deployed for the first 30 days. Plus, if you register, IGEL will issue a fully functional (including MMCP for multimedia support) license for 90 days. This enables organizations to evaluate and onboard users more efficiently. For those deploying the UD Pocket (or IGEL OS on Live USB Key), this will allow faster adoption and enable organizations to deploy secure workspaces even quicker.

We’re All in this Together

I would like to thank all the IGEL employees and partners who continue to help produce our hardware, develop our software and ensure prompt response to those organizations deploying our technology. IGEL continues to work around-the-clock and over weekends to endeavor to deliver units, licenses and support to those organizations that need them most.

Learn more about how IGEL is making remote working easy here: https://en-staging.igel.com/work-from-home/

*Note: Customers should ensure that their existing hardware supports the new the 64bit OS 11.  IGEL strongly recommends testing IGEL OS 11 on existing hardware prior to trading up licenses AND suggests that customers contact their IGEL representative for guidance on whether their hardware can support the new OS.  IGEL OS 11 can be downloaded at en-staging.igel.com/download.  

To be eligible for the trade up program, customers will need to provide Proof of Purchase. A device report from the IGEL management suite or copy of order / delivery note. This program is available through authorized IGEL partners, and limited to customers only.