iPad

Windows 7 & Office 2010 on the iPad!

Leigh Haynes , , , , , ,

In response to some of the strategic drivers of the project, ICT has sought to identify solutions which will allow us to deliver a Windows 7 & Office 2010 desktop to mobile devices. The desire to work flexibly from mobile post-PC devices was a reoccurring theme in our stakeholder interviews and workshops.

For the purpose of the proof of concept; ICT decided to concentrate on ensuring that the proposed solutions would work with the iPad. The rationale being that the iPad is by far the leading product in the tablet market and that the screen size of any smaller device was not very practical for interacting with a full Windows desktop.

Windows 7 & Office 2010 on the iPad

To access the Citrix environment, iPad users simply need to visit the App Store and install the free Citrix Receiver app. Once installed, the only configuration that is required is to click Get Started and enter the address of the Citrix web server.

Unfortunately, for the Remote Desktop environment, there is no free Microsoft equivalent of the Citrix app. There are several third-party offerings, but to-date there is only one which includes the required “TS Gateway” support for Remote Desktop. The app is iTap RDP which costs £7.99 plus a further £2.99 in app purchase for the module which adds TS Gateway support. Once purchased and installed the app requires a little more configuration as it is necessary to create a Bookmark which specifies both the host name of the Remote Desktop server and the web address of the Gateway.

Both solutions offer a very useable, full University Corporate Desktop experience to iPad users.

Previously on…

Leigh Haynes , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Windows LogoHere is a brief summary of the work completed so far on the Windows 7 & Office 2010 project.

In February 2011, ICT Services selected Centralis as a consultancy partner to help us work through the many design and technology choices and develop our desktop transformation strategy.

In April, a number of interviews and workshops were held to identify the requirements of particular stakeholders. These requirements were analysed and used to develop an initial high-level design and budgetary report.

The report, which gave recommendations as to possible technology solutions, was submitted to the University’s Infrastructure Committee in May. The Committee asked ICT Services to run a very small scale proof of concept which will allow us to test some of the different technologies available in various usage scenarios.

These proof of concept environments have now been built and will soon be made available to a small group of test users. We are trialling two different technology solutions; Citrix XenApp and Microsoft Remote Desktop Services. Both of which will allow you to connect to a Windows 7 & Office 2010 desktop from a variety of devices regardless of location. This includes the PC or Mac on your desk at work, your laptop, your computer at home, thin client devices and even on some mobile devices such as the iPad.

In the background we will also be trialling some other supporting technologies; AppSense Environment Manager which provides enhanced user personalisation, and Microsoft App-V which enables more agile application deployment.

The next stage of the project aims to capture the end user experience of using the proposed solutions to help inform which, if any, might be the best fit for the University.