Admin & Never Been Breached w. @IGEL_Tehnology
Managing thousands of endpoint devices? Need help reducing costs and increasing security? In this short video we learn about how IGEL, a company with a long history in Europe (and now in the US) enables a single console & administrator to centrally manage tens of thousands of end point devices. Here's the transcript below from our conversation with Jed Ayres, CMO and lear more at www.igel.com.
Transcript:
David Littman: Hey Dave Littman, Truth in IT, and I am thrilled to have with me Jed Ayres. Jed is CEO of the North American operation of IGEL. Jed welcome.
Jed Ayres: Thank you David, great to be with you.
David Littman: All right and it's great to have you because this is a very cool story. IGEL has been a big name in the thin client world in Germany, and it's not only bringing its act to the US, you guys have been here now for a while. You guys are kicking butt and taking names in the HP and Dell space. So we want to hear about that especially as it relates to how companies managing tens of thousands of endpoint devices can save money, and Opex, and Capex, and let's also talk about security a bit too. So go ahead Jed, tell us what's new at IGEL.
Jed Ayres: So over the last year we've made a huge push into the US. We actually opened an office here in San Francisco. We're right at the base of the new Salesforce Tower here in San Francisco. We've tripled the size of our team. We recruited a great set of channel partners, we have 19 platinum partners that are some of the best Citrix and VMware partners out there, and really what we've done is told a story around a very mature software stock. A 20 year old, 6th generation Linux operating system, that's extensible to pretty much any kind of X86 hardware out there. But most importantly something that can be managed in a very clear, profile driven, pane of glass. So that story is really resonating with the enterprise, and with Citrix and VMware partners, and it's something kind of different from the traditional hardware models that are being pushed by HP and Dell. It has some profound implications on the Capex and Opex, and security as you mentioned for companies. So I can speak to it, a little bit about those three areas if you'd like.
David Littman: Yeah, yeah. Why don't we take it first, let's talk about Opex, we'll go onto Capex, and we'll finish up with security.
Jed Ayres: Sure, so on the Opex side really what we see is a reduction in the number of people that it takes to manage these large environments, right. So we come in and we show people the single pane of glass, profile driven solutions, and their eyes get huge. Typically, it's somebody that's suffered behind, you know, our competitors management tools. They see what we can do and then they extend that thinking in terms of the number of bodies required to manage these. We have a retail client that has 30,000 devices and 5,000 stores, managed by one person. That's a remarkable set of savings. So that's the first area.
The second area is really Capex. When you're able to take this software and put it on any device that's been out there for 10 years, you can save a lot of money, right. We saw a customer last quarter that put our USB stick, which runs our operating system in 10,000 Dell thin clients, that were end of life, that couldn't run Skype for Business. They were able to save $6.5 million dollars. So that's a really savings that they can go buy Citrix licenses with or other hardware, cloud solutions. It's a big savings. Real money.
Then the third area we want to talk about is security. You know, IGEL has a read only file system. It's never been breached. It's very light, very secure, and we continue to harden it. We really have made it a focus and we have some very interesting integrations coming around keylogging, and it's just a great security story. So, while we're not a security company per se, there's a inherent architectural advantage with our operating system, in combination with the VDI.
David Littman: And you know it sounds like there is also another advantage Jed, which has to do the mobility right? I mean you guys can put this software on pretty much any device right?
Jed Ayres: Yeah, so that is absolutely a part of the IGEL story, right. We have a software based solution that it can either wipe the underlying operating system and run our ROS, or you can plug this USB stick into a device, and keep the underlying operating system and you could be in Starbucks on a MacBook, boot to your Citrix of VMware environment and get a very clean solution that can be managed by the administrator back in the corporate office. He can see that device, he can apply contextual security parameters to it. That's a profound difference from sort of, maybe your grandfather's thin client of the past, right. One where you're really thinking about only task workers, behind a kiosk or in a bank teller situation. We're moving the idea of a thin client out into the wild, if you will. Home workers, BYOD, contractors. It's a very exciting time right?
The idea that without any VPMs you can manage any device running IGEL's operating system in the same manner that you could manage your device that's behind the firewall of that company. So that in the last year, between the mobility with our UD pocket thumb drive, and the IGEL cloud gateway, this ability to see and manage all these devices that are running IGEL's operating system, that have an internet connection. Those two things have changed everything.
David Littman: Well it sounds like a great tagline, Jed, "IGEL not your daddy's thin client."
Jed Ayres: Right.
David Littman: So hey, thanks very much for taking the time to speak with us today. If you want to learn more. If you want to download the software go to igel.com and thanks for watching. Jed thanks again, and you know we'd love to have you back some time.
Jed Ayres: Absolutely. Thanks David, appreciate the time.
David Littman: Okay. Thanks for watching.