Dive Brief:
- Last week, Microsoft announced a public preview of its Enterprise State Roaming (ESR).
- First hyped by the company last May, the solution is an enterprise-specific synchronization of settings, apps and passwords between devices running Windows 10.
- ESR is tied to Azure Active Directory Premium, the commercial cloud-based directory and identity management service.
Dive Insight:
Competition between cloud companies has been tough in recent months, with AWS and Microsoft introducing lots of new features and benefits to keep customers interested. The synchronization offerings could tempt companies that tout mobile work options.
ESR offers an enterprise-grade personalization sync for Windows 10, synchronizing settings across multiple devices.
Microsoft is now pushing enterprises to adopt Azure AD as part of their move to Windows 10, said Microsoft analyst Wes Miller, in an interview with Computerworld. As Windows 10 becomes dominant, Azure AD will likely become more attractive to enterprises.
"Azure AD is definitely something organizations should be looking into," said Miller. "People are doing profile roaming today anyway, so [enterprises] should keep a watch on Azure AD regardless of whether they're now using on-premises."
