Immidio has released AppScriber 3, a new version of our enterprise app store. Besides adding many small improvements, the Enterprise edition has been extended with some major new features, in close cooperation with our customers:

• Customizable user interface, to align with corporate look and feel
• More extensive workflow (2-level), where you can select users or groups to perform a first approval step of application requests, which — when approved — will then need an additional approval by a second layer of selected users or groups. Workflow settings are configurable per application.
• More granular control over who sees so-called General applications, to only allow certain groups of users to activate applications without approval.
• Additional item types, to enable self-servicing for other types of resources, besides applications, which are controlled by Active Directory security groups, like printers or shares.

According to feedback we have received from our customer base, the new features added to our product make Immidio AppScriber 3 a complete enterprise app store for corporate Windows infrastructures.

Immidio now also offers AppScriber 3 Express, a free edition without any user limits or time limits. The following features are not available in the Express edition:

• User interface customization
• Managed applications
• Additional item types
• Security group filtering on general applications

If you start using the Express edition and want to unlock all features of Immidio AppScriber 3, you only need to install a valid Enterprise edition license file.

Feel free to give Immidio AppScriber 3 a try. After registering on the Immidio website, you can download the Immidio AppScriber 3 installation package and get a free 30-day trial license for the fully functional Enterprise edition or a full license for the Express edition.

Click here to watch the AppScriber 3 Enterprise introduction video.

Immidio AppScriber 2.0 is available! Here is a brief introduction into the product:  In today’s agile business world, employees want 24×7 self-service access to the Windows applications they need. Immidio AppScriber, allowing web-based self-service application provisioning, is the solution to such requirements.  Through the AppScriber frontend, users can interactively provision their own applications or make an application self-assignment request to an approver.  All a user needs to do is simply browse or search for the application he or she needs, and subscribe or unsubscribe with one click.

Immidio AppScriber significantly reduces the time consumed by user-initiated application requests, as these activities require no IT intervention, no call to the helpdesk and no support ticket opened.  This gives users a sense of independence when selecting the applications they need, while enabling your IT department to retain control.

Immidio AppScriber extends the most popular application deployment solutions, such as Microsoft Installer (MSI) with Group Policies, Microsoft App-V, Microsoft System Center Configuration Manager, Microsoft RemoteApp programs (as provided with Windows Server 2008 R2 RDS), Citrix XenApp application publishing, Citrix application streaming and Symantec Altiris Deployment Solution.

Immidio AppScriber 2.0 now differentiates between three application types: general applications, mandatory applications and managed applications.  General applications were introduced with Immidio AppScriber 1.0, where users can self-assign an application through the AppScriber web interface.  The new mandatory application type allows AppScriber administrators to show a list of applications deployed statically to groups of users.  This gives users an accurate overview of all applications they have access to.

The most relevant feature introduced with Immidio AppScriber 2.0 is the managed application type which kicks off an approval workflow as soon as the user requests such an application.  For this purpose, Immidio AppScriber 2.0 supports a new approver role – one or more approvers can be configured per managed application.  An approver is a non-technical manager that is able to accept or reject a user’s request.  The workflow process involved supports interactivity and message delivery both through the web frontend and through e-mail.

According to feedback we have received from our customer base, the workflow functionalities added to our product make Immidio AppScriber 2.0 a complete enterprise solution.  Now the three relevant roles for application deployment are reflected in the product – application users, non-technical application approvers and IT administrators.

Feel free to give Immidio AppScriber 2.0 a try. After registering on the Immidio website, you can download the fully functional Immidio AppScriber 2.0 installation package and get a free 30-day trial license.

When looking at all the different application provisioning methodologies available today, I get the feeling that you need a PHD if you want to keep track of how they work and what they require to give users fast access to dynamic application sets. On one side, new virtualization technologies ensure unprecedented application integrity, compatibility and stability. On the other side, there is a lack of commonly available self-controlled ways to assign these applications to users.

But I believe that this is exactly what matters; users want to have on-demand access to applications, independent of how they are provided or provisioned. In the best of all worlds, the users’ workspace environment would be able to predict which applications a user will need in the next minute. But giving the user a simple way to select and self-assigned required applications through an intuitive interface will also do the job. As a result the right icon is created on the user desktop or the start menu is populated as needed in that very moment.

Most application virtualization vendors are aware of this fact. So they tend to create a vendor-specific solution, allowing users to self-provision applications in their preferred fashion, leveraging only one specific technology. We at Immidio strongly believe that this is not what customers want because it’s an “all or nothing” approach. We think that a solution should be vendor-agnostic and independent of a specific application deployment mechanism. And this is exactly what Immidio AppScriber is about!

Immidio AppScriber allows Windows users to self-assign and run applications with no or only minimal delay. Most importantly, the underlying mechanism is completely platform-agnostic. For Immidio AppScriber it doesn’t make any difference if applications are provided through Microsoft Installer, Microsoft App-V, Microsoft RemoteApp, Citrix XenApp published applications, Citrix XenApp streamed applications or VMware ThinApp. There are no dependencies of a Citrix Receiver infrastructure or application streaming back-end services -only Active Directory is required. Immidio AppScriber makes an end to “vendor exclusiveness”, it allows a great variety of application provisioning solutions and products to be combined seamlessly.

Independent of the application provisioning platforms involved, an AppScriber administrator specifies the application sets users are authorized to access and tracks their usage through real-time reporting. From the user perspective, applications are presented through AppScriber’s configurable web front-end which may easily be integrated into existing corporate portals. The user interface is customizable to reflect the look and feel of the company. Since the list of available applications shows up in a familiar interface, no training is needed for business users.

Immidio AppScriber’s independence of application provisioning and deployment mechanisms is clearly one of its unique selling points. There is no “lock-in” effect to a specific technology. If you want to know more about this, feel free to contact us through info@immidio.com.

A couple of weeks ago, we introduced AppScriber as a brand new Immidio product. Now more and more people I meet when I’m at conferences or community events ask me what it’s good for. In short, Immidio AppScriber is a web application that provides users with the functionality to self-assign Windows applications. It makes it easier for the users to manage their own start menus and their application icons. With Immidio AppScriber the user is in control while staying within the boundaries pre-defined by a system administrator.

But who needs such a product? The answer is simple. Immidio AppScriber is ideal for IT departments that want to reduce costs and labor when providing their users with centrally deployed and managed applications. The product is specifically designed for IT environments with large numbers of users that need flexible access to dynamic application sets, in particular universities, hospitals and all enterprises with contractors or rapidly changing work forces. Immidio AppScriber is perfectly suited for administrators who don’t want to worry about manually assigning the right applications to users.

Technically, Immidio AppScriber allows an end-user to activate and deactivate applications through a secure self-service web front-end, after an administrator made him or her member of the AppScriber user group. As a result, AppScriber helps the users to subscribe and control applications that are relevant to them. The only prerequisite related to the underlying application provisioning platform is that all applications are assigned to individual Active Directory security groups. At this point it is important to note that the solution is completely vendor-agnostic. This means that today’s most relevant Windows application deployment and application virtualization technologies — such as Microsoft Installer, Microsoft App-V, Microsoft RemoteApp, Citrix XenApp published applications or VMware ThinApp — work perfectly well with Immidio AppScriber.

So, if you want to empower your users to get the Windows applications they need on-demand from any place and without intervention by an administrator, give Immidio AppScriber a try.