Increasing software availability with AppsAnywhere at the University of Derby

See why the University of Derby is calling AppsAnywhere a "gamechanger"; helping them provide a world-class student experience by making all their software available wherever students are, whenever they need it.

AppsAnywhere at the University of Derby - Video Transcription

University of Derby is a post-1992 university, which is a very diverse university, providing services to approximately 30,000 students. Before we started using AppsAnywhere, I think one of the challenges that we had was that the student experience was something that was incredibly important to us, but we knew one area was the fact that students couldn’t necessarily have the software they needed when they wanted it, where they wanted it.

I’d been frustrated. I wanted to get software much more available to our students, wherever they might be. And that, prior to AppsAnywhere, that was a significant problem.

Previously, we’ve tried Microsoft Application Virtualization [App-V], and VDI. AppsAnywhere were able to deliver something that we were able to use our current infrastructure on and able to roll it out with a limited cost increase.

AppsAnywhere have really helped the university in terms of being able to resolve some of the issues we’ve had. They’re a very effective company. Students love the application and the ability to access the applications they need when and where they need it. Our academics are describing it as a game-changer!

It’s cut down my workload quite significantly there and given me much better reporting than I had before. So that’s much better, again, efficiency-saving. And in terms of the Cloudpaging, the amount of work it will reduce for us, in terms of just managing the integrations and the problems of application deployment and managing the relationship with our customers internally, who in the past have always been quite frustrated as to the limitations that we put on where we deploy applications. Clearly, those dialogues just don’t need to take place now, so I feel we’re a much more efficient and effective organization, just from taking those two products.

AppsAnywhere as a company are a pleasure to work with. I haven’t been paid for this, but they’re one of the ones that drive you to think about your processes and how to make things better. I want to be engaged and they talk to HE and they come in and think about ideas with you, which is great.

Having more of a partner relationship, where it’s easy to work with somebody is absolutely critical to us. So I’ve been pleased with both the relationship with AppsAnywhere, as well as with the software that has been provided to us.

If you’re thinking about doing a project, engage AppsAnywhere before you’ve even started thinking about what that project looks like. If you’ve already got the project halfway through, get that team involved, and make sure that you listen to them because there is some good stuff that can actually be done together.

I think AppsAnywhere are different because they listen. It’s not, “Here’s our product. Use it.” There is a two-wayness about it, which is just terrific.