by René Bigler, CTP, Swiss CUGC Leader

When I started working in education about 20 years ago, there was one computer in our school: the device was placed on the desk of our accountant, right beside an electric typewriter. Obviously, things have changed a lot since those days.

While seemingly yesterday, there were not much more than a couple of personal computers and printers, today, our equipment includes Thin Clients, PCs, Notebooks, Tablets, Smartphones, MFPs, 3D-Printers, Plotters, Cutters, CNC, Projectors, Visualizers, HoloLens, etc. The school has also moved from a Microsoft-only shop to a very diverse place with devices running on Windows, MacOS, ChromeOS, Android, iOS and Linux. Word and Excel are not the only software tools anymore – Browsers, Office 365, learning apps and platforms, multimedia, graphics, line of business applications, and CAD/CIM have all joined the toolbox.

However, probably the biggest change is how today’s faculty and students teach and learn. They both expect us to provide reliable, performing and modern services enabling them to work at any time, on any device from any place. That is where Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops, formerly Citrix XenApp and XenDesktop, come into play. As a modern vocational college, we encourage students to adopt our bring-your-own-device strategy (BYOD) and actively support our faculty members by equipping them with modern mobile corporate-owned, personally enabled devices (COPE).

Citrix App Virtualization and VDI allows us cost-effective, secure delivery of applications and desktops to any device, and gives students, faculty and employees the freedom to learn, teach and work from anywhere while cutting IT costs and complexity.