One of the most attractive and important aspects of the merger of NitroDesk and Symantec last year was the combining of our joint expertise to bring enterprise customers a powerful set of offerings that leverage key aspects of mobility and security from a vast array of components readily available within the Symantec portfolio. These include mobile application management, identity and access management, data loss prevention, encryption, threat protection and more.
Since the acquisition, Symantec has been working continuously behind the scenes to make significant updates to TouchDown and the enterprise version, Symantec Work Mail. Greatly improving the user experience as well as adding advanced features for our enterprise customers, such as streamlining and automating enrollment for employees, has been at the top of our list.
Now, we are pleased to report, some significant progress has been made. Serious thought has been put into the overall Symantec Mobility Solutions path forward: where to make the investments, which aspects of the products to improve and the timeframes for those improvements. Our immediate focus is on the iOS platform and Android platform for TouchDown and Work Mail. Our development efforts started first on the iOS platform, which was severely lacking in enhancements, and will be followed by user experience updates to the flagship Android platform. We released maintenance updates for both TouchDown for iOS and Work Mail for iOS in Fall 2014. In the last month we released maintenance updates for the Android apps, and rolled out the redesign of the iOS Work Mail app. The redesign is planned for release on Android later this year.
Blog: Secure Email is getting a new look
Video: Symantec Mobility: Work Mail Demo
Symantec Work Mail will continue to work hand-in-hand with Symantec Mobility: Suite to provide enterprises with a total mobility solution. Work Mail offers businesses extra controls and protection that can be managed and pre-configured through a central management console. Future enhancements to Work Mail will center on adding enterprise capabilities, such as integrations with other Symantec security products including Data Loss Prevention and Encryption. Work Mail works seamlessly with other Symantec productivity apps, offered now as Symantec Mobility: Workforce Apps, just released this week, to create a secure workflow for employees. With Workforce Apps, companies can manage secure email, web browser, and file management tools from a central application management console and delivered through an enterprise app store, to protect corporate information at the app and data level – regardless of whether the device is corporate owned or personally owned – so employees can be productive anytime, anywhere.
Additionally, Symantec has streamlined the purchasing routes for NitroDesk customers and partners. Customers can purchase TouchDown directly through Symantec, with new service and maintenance options, or they can purchase Work Mail as part of the Symantec Mobility products through Symantec or a Symantec Partner. TouchDown will continue to be available for individual licenses through the Apple app store and Google Play store.
Symantec continues to support TouchDown customers and welcomes organizations to explore Symantec’s offerings that connect secure email to our other secure productivity tools for employees and create a seamless virtual workspace. In the past six months, Symantec Mobility products have evolved and integrated into a single, comprehensive EMM solution that gives companies the freedom and flexibility to customize deployments to their needs. Incorporating this essential email app and enhancing on its enterprise capabilities has been an important step in progressing towards our product vision to be the leader in protecting corporate data on mobile devices.