AirShip, the first browser designed for the enterprise, accelerates web services deployment

Accelerate the deployment of web-based applications

As business operations continue to evolve and innovate, the need to rapidly develop, integrate and deploy new applications is posing new challenges for the IT department. SaaS, partner extranet applications, or external software developments will use the latest technologies available at the moment they’re developed, and they’re likely to depend on the most recent version of one or other of the industry-standard browsers.

End-users, typically, use multiple applications during the day. Browser compatibility is a growing issue for end-user support, as applications dependent on different browser configuration or versions must co-exist in the end user environment. The IT department is called on to find workarounds for browser problems, slowing down the deployment of new applications and services and adding to the costs; sometimes, it may not be possible to find the right tool.

AirShip offers an fast, future-proof solution. AirShip, the enterprise browser, supports concurrent execution of multiple different browser configurations in a single end-point runtime environment, including browsers and plugins not natively supported on the end-point technology. AirShip supports, for example, simultaneous execution of an IE6 environment for access to legacy applications and an IE8 environment for access to newly developed services. Similarly, access to an application based on an obsolete Java engine can be maintained alongside applications requiring the latest JRE.

When a new application is to be rolled out, a system administrator configures the optimum browser environment on the AirShip Management Platform. The configuration immediately becomes a part of the AirShip end user’s environment for transparent, seamless access to the new application. No new software, no OS or application updates, no manual intervention is needed on the end-point device. 

Transparent access to enterprise applications

When the users launch the AirShip browser on their desktop or mobile device they see a standard browser window. This may have the look and feel of one of the familiar industry browsers, or it may be customized – for example, to conform to enterprise visual identity guidelines. The visual style, like every other aspect of browser configuration, is controlled by the system administrator, not the end user.

When an enterprise standardized on Internet Explorer deploys an application dependent on (for example) Google Chrome, it can be presented via AirShip with an Internet Explorer user interface over the Chrome engine. End-users retain their habitual, familiar browser environment while AirShip delivers the optimum configuration for the application.

For each application, AirShip automatically loads and runs the optimum browser configuration (rendering engine, plugins) as preconfigured by the system administrator. The confusion, support costs and lost productivity of users trying to access business applications with unsupported or incompatible browsers is eliminated.