Application manager that pleases both IT and the user

At RSA Conference 2015 AppSense announced the release of AppSense Application Manager version 8.9.

Application Manager 8.9 leverages AppSense’s decade-plus experience balancing desktop IT needs and user acceptance to accelerate initiatives that require scalable application control on any version of Windows, including Windows 8 App Store, and granular privilege management.

With Application Manager, IT teams can define per-user application entitlements, comply with licensing requirements and enforce corporate security policy based on contextual factors such as location, device name, IP address, firewall settings, or even time of day. In addition, AppSense’s privilege management technology ensures that desktop admin rights are granted only when the user needs them. Empowering IT teams to put the principle of “least privilege” into action improves endpoint security without disrupting user workflows and productivity.

Maintaining blacklists and whitelists often pose significant management overhead for desktop IT teams. Application Manager uses AppSense’s “Trusted Ownership” technology to ensure that only applications installed by select administrators are allowed to execute, while user-introduced applications are prevented from launching by default. Trusted Ownership allows IT teams to optionally maintain whitelists and blacklists, but removes users’ perception that IT is controlling user computing and makes users feel like they are in control.

“IT’s desire to lock down corporate endpoints in order to maintain security is at odds with end-users’ need for flexibility around the applications they want to install and run and the privileges they need,” said Ravi Khatod, senior vice president of product and business development at AppSense. “Application Manager pleases both IT and the user, whether the user is on a physical, virtual and cloud desktop.”

AppSense’s “user-first” design philosophy ensures user experience is maintained as desktops are being secured. For example, AppSense Application Manager’s on-demand change request feature allows IT to offer a white-glove response to user requests without impacting IT’s gold image management or user productivity.

“AppSense Application Manager lets our staff choose their favorite tool to get on with their work while ensuring we are still PCI compliant,” said Mike Braid, Infrastructure Engineer at Auto Trader, UK. “We chose AppSense because of its depth of capabilities. For example, to meet PCI requirements, call centers must to turn off recording software while taking credit card information over the phone. Our previous application control software would not let us block access to the billing application from non-IE browsers, forcing us to trade off either security or user productivity.”