This week marks the one year anniversary of the day I moved to a Chromebook as my full-time computer for work, and put my Macbook in a drawer for good. And I’m happy to report that I’ve never looked back.
As the person who manages the Citrix Strategic Alliance with Google, I have had a lot of exposure to Google Chrome, and have been using it since 2013 for certain tasks. I had been looking forward to making the full time switch to Chrome OS for quite a while, and last March, a variety of things had evolved to the point where I could finally make the leap.
Here are some of the reasons a Chromebook worked so well for me, and why I’m sticking with it. I hope they’ll help you see why 2018 is the time to make Chromebooks an enterprise choice for you and your employees.
The evolution of Chrome OS.
Chrome OS has come a long way since 2009, when Google announced the ambitious project to create an OS where the applications and user data reside in the cloud. Sixty-five plus major versions later, Chrome OS is here to stay.
I’ll let my friends at Google Cloud tell the “Fast, simple, secure” story of Chrome OS. But for me, it boils down to three things: the fastest boot up and launch of applications, the easiest update and management, and by far the best battery life (for those long flights) that I’ve ever seen.
The improvement by the device OEMS
One of the criticisms of early Chromebooks was that they weren’t “enterprise ready.” That is definitely not the case today, as a growing number of OEMs make Chromebooks perfect for business users. Great design, top materials, and highly portable. I’ve been using the Samsung Chromebook Pro and Google Pixelbook, but there are many to choose from. You can check out the entire selection of Citrix Ready Chromebooks here.
Citrix Receiver for Chrome
Though we exist in an increasingly SaaS-based world, there are still a large number of ISV and internally developed line of business and legacy applications that run on Windows. We launched the first Receiver for Chrome with Google back in 2010 when the first Chromebook debuted to specifically address this issue.
The 20th release of Receiver for Chrome came out just last week, and it makes it easier than ever for me to be productive as I move between the virtual apps, desktops, and SaaS apps that make up my Secure Digital Workspace. All on my Chromebook.
And I’m not the only one who feels this way! Millions of Citrix users around the world have downloaded Receiver for Chrome, and are using it on their Chromebooks every day. Per IDC, over 25% of Fortune 500 companies will be using Chromebooks by the end of 2018.
For more info on how customers are using XenApp and XenDesktop on Chrome OS, check out these white papers and success stories.
Sharefile
The key to my successful use of a Chromebook as my main computing device is my ability to securely access the files I need to do my job, wherever I am, at anytime. Sharefile really has become the bridge between my virtual apps and desktop and the key SaaS apps, like G Suite, that I use to collaborate with my coworkers and colleagues.
Citrix UEM for Chrome Enterprise
I have had CIOs from customers tell me over the last 5 years that they felt that a Chromebook combined with XenApp or XenDesktop is the most secure endpoint they can put in their employees hands. The ability to lock down Chrome OS combined with the apps and data being delivered by Citrix from their data center means nothing critical lives on or can be taken from the device.
Last week, Citrix announced UEM support for Chrome Enterprise, bringing all this functionality into your XenMobile environment. Using Google Chrome Enterprise, you can now set policies to manage Chrome OS endpoints in the same place to do for all the iOS and Android devices that your employees use, as well.
As I was reminiscing about my first year on a Chromebook for this post, I was also thinking about how much we’ve expanded our partnership with Google since March 20th, 2017. In addition to all the work we’ve done with Google around Chrome we’ve:
- Committed to substantially expand our partnership to help customers move to the cloud
- Gone GA with Citrix Cloud XenApp Service on Google Cloud
- Launched several key integrations between Sharefile and G Suite, and the ability to use Google Cloud Storage as a Sharefile Storage Zone
- Showed you how to deploy NetScaler CPX on Google Compute Engine
- And added loads of new functionality to our ability to help you deploy and manage Android in your enterprise
We’ve come a long way with Google in a short time, and we’re committed to working together to continue offering customers the best options for their Secure Digital Workspaces
Come see us at Citrix Synergy in May and see how Citrix and Google will continue to innovate together with productivity, security, and cloud solutions for our enterprise customers.
Register TODAY for a webinar with IDG’s Bob Bragdon, and Citrix + Google security experts to learn how Citrix and Chrome Enterprise enable a secure cloud endpoint strategy for your business.
