Bradford Central School District in New York has chosen Ericom AccessNow, an HTML5 RDP client, to provide K-12 students with browser-based access to hosted Windows applications from school-owned Chromebooks, as well as students’ personal laptops, tablets and smartphones.
Ericom AccessNow runs entirely within any HTML5 compatible browser such as Chrome, Firefox, Safari and Internet Explorer, therefore working on Chromebooks, iPads, iPhones, Android devices, Mac and Linux, in addition to Windows. There is no installation of software on the end-user device, which significantly reduces IT staff support costs.
Jeff Tham, Technology Coordinator for Bradford Central School District says: “The biggest obstacle we ran into was that we have a handful of apps that cannot run on our Chromebooks, the most important of which is a Windows-based typing program called Typing Master. Additionally, our students also need access to other Windows legacy applications such as Internet Explorer, Office Suite and possibly even Adobe PhotoShop.”
AccessNow’s support for a variety of devices was an important factor in Bradford’s decision. “AccessNow definitely met all our requirements because of its ability to do cross-platform,” mentioned Tham. “Just because we’re doing it primarily for Chromebooks doesn’t mean that down the road we wouldn’t come in from tablets or smartphones. I really wanted a clientless solution that wouldn’t require a huge manual for kids to connect in. Plus Ericom’s offering was certainly much more cost-effective.”
AccessNow does not require any infrastructure for deployment, upgrades or patches and integrates with the Ericom Secure Gateway, which can be used with or instead of a VPN or an SSL VPN. It gives access to Windows and web-based apps from anywhere and enables access to Education websites and systems (e.g., ALEKS) and web applications (e.g., MAP TAA) not supported by Chrome (those requiring Java or ActiveX).
To try an on-line demo, visit: http://www.ericom.com/demo_AccessNow
