Microsoft links Azure Active Directory to Edge more

Microsoft announced earlier this week that the iOS and Android versions of its Edge browser now support single sign-on (SSO) and conditional access-essential security, management, and convenience features for the enterprise. Integrating Edge on mobile into the broader ecosystem of the enterprise – taking advantage of Azure Active Directory SSO (Azure AD), for example – may be the best way for Microsoft to engage its largest customers adopt the browser.

Edge users can now launch third-party or internal web applications connected to Azure AD without having to enter their credentials again. Once connected to the device, all other connected Azure-AD applications – those that have been chosen by the IT staff of the company – are accessible without additional authentication. When Edge is set as the default browser in the Outlook application and conditional access is enabled, all web resources connected to Azure AD open in Edge and without additional authentication.

Mobile approved Edge policies

Edge can replace the Intune Managed Browser – a very simplistic browser with Microsoft’s Intune strategy – for SSO, and simplify access to web applications. (Intune Managed Browser was integrated for the first time with Azure AD and SSO in mid-2017, just months before the launch of Edge on iOS or Android.) It’s also a way for the publisher to push Edge to users of the company: Microsoft is betting that they will abandon default browsers on their mobile devices (Chrome for Android, Safari for iOS).

“More important than SSO, Edge is gaining support for conditional access,” said Mayunk Jain, who did not spare rival sailors. “You can now apply Microsoft Edge policies and approve the mobile browser to access Azure AD-connected web applications, and limit the use of unprotected browsers like Safari or Chrome,” he wrote.

Conditional Access and SSO, Azure AD Pillars

The generic term “conditional access” refers to a set of IT policies to define which devices, from which locations and in which situations, mobile devices can access a company’s web applications. Rather than relying solely on username and password authentication to grant access, conditional access allows you to review multiple criteria before allowing a user access to the user’s data. the company. Is the device completely up-to-date? Does it connect from a familiar geographical location or does its IP address place it abruptly, say, in Moscow?

Like SSO, conditional access is a feature of Azure AD, but unlike the former, the latter is limited to the most expensive identity subscriptions, or associated with paid subscriptions like Microsoft 365. It’s also a lever that Microsoft can use to push more business users to use Edge. “People who try to use unmanaged browsers like Safari and Chrome will be invited to open Microsoft Edge instead,” Jain said as he explained how Edge access works.

A paltry market share of Edge on mobile

At the end of last year, Microsoft had announced a redesign of its Edge browser, including the abandonment of its own rendering engines and java scripts to replace those of the open-source project Chromium, on which is based Chrome . Although Edge for Android uses Chromium components, Apple’s App Store requirements will require Edge on iOS to continue to use Safari’s Java rendering and scripting engines.

The share of Edge users on mobile is ridiculous. According to analytics provider Net Applications in March, Edge was just 0.06%, more than 1000 times less than Google’s Chrome leader, which captures 63% of the market. “Support for SSO and conditional access has been added in a public preview of Edge,” said Mayunk Jain, Senior Product Manager, in a message posted on April 22nd on a corporate blog. The latter invites users to install the latest version and provides a link to the download page.