Flexera, the company that's reimagining how software is bought, sold, managed and secured, today announced the release of AdminStudio 2018 R3, the industry-leading integrated Application Readiness solution for reliable packaging, virtualisation and management of Windows, Mac and mobile applications. AdminStudio continues to help enterprises eliminate much of the risk and inefficiency around preparing application deployments and updates via centralised Application Readiness best practice processes and automation.

Integration with VMware Workspace ONE

Workspace ONE has extended its capabilities beyond management of mobile devices and applications management - to a complete, unified, end-user management solution managing desktops and desktop application deployments.

AdminStudio has long featured seamless integration with AirWatch to hand off mobile apps from AdminStudio for deployments on managed devices. Now with improved support for desktop applications in Workspace ONE, packages can be directly published from AdminStudio - eliminating time-consuming, manual steps.

VMware Workspace ONE continues to extend its leadership in unified endpoint management (UEM) by offering management capabilities beyond mobile devices and apps to the complete lifecycle of desktops and desktop apps, including for Windows 10.

AdminStudio features seamless integration with Workspace ONE to hand off apps for deployments on managed mobile and desktop devices. Further, with improved support for desktop/Win32 applications in Workspace ONE, packages can now be directly published from AdminStudio, eliminating time-consuming manual steps.

"With this integration, we aim to reduce the complexity and cost associated with repackaging Win32 apps so that IT admins can worry about more strategic tasks at hand," said Jason Roszak, Senior Director of Product Management, End User Computing at VMware. "With the ability to automatically test, remediate, manage and deploy any app across all environments, IT can focus on providing employees with a great end-to-end user experience rather than on the tactics of getting apps ready for them."

Microsoft's MSIX Suitability Assessment and Conversion

AdminStudio introduced suitability support earlier this year. This helped administrators assess their current package formats for suitability for conversion to the new Microsoft MSIX format. With AdminStudio 2018 R3, administrators can take the next step in converting installers into deployable MSIX packages.

Enhanced package suitability and conversion features help enterprises easily unlock the value of MSIX. Flexera now provides proactive assessment of an organisation's current apps, to make the right decisions and take the correct actions - before migrating to MSIX.

Vendor Command Line Support

Determining vendor command line arguments for silent installation can be a manual, time-consuming and burdensome task.

"Repackaging legacy setups for silent deployment is becoming increasingly less common. Over the years, software vendors have done a good job providing basic command line support for silent installation," said Bob Kelly, Manager of Product Management at Flexera. "Determining what silent, command-line options are possible has been a massive challenge for IT. AdminStudio's new ability to recommend silent, command-line arguments directly makes life easier and speeds the application deployment process."

This vast time saver for IT eliminates the need to research supported vendor command-line arguments for each application.

EXE Wrapping

Repackaging an application, or customising using a transform file account for two out of three of the common deployment scenarios, is prevalent today. Increasingly popular is the process of wrapping a vendor's installer with supported, command-line options for a consistent deployment. AdminStudio can wrap packages into PowerShell script files, leveraging the PowerShell App Deployment Toolkit, but now adds the ability to wrap packages into customizable executable packages.

Second only to PowerShell, has been the use of Wise Script Editor to create executable file wrappers. This GUI-driven point and click capability allows rich customisation options, without scripting expertise.

AdminStudio Professional and Enterprise editions will now also include Wise Script Editor, and can be leveraged as an alternative to PowerShell.