Staff at University of East Anglia use iPads for paperless meetings

SCHAFFHAUSEN, Switzerland, October 25, 2012-GroupLogic®, an Acronis Company, has announced the successful deployment of mobilEcho at the University of East Anglia to support its introduction of the iPad® to 500 staff members. The solution provides easy and secure file access from iPad's across the campus, allowing the IT organization to maintain control of directory and file access policies whilst achieving its goal for paperless meetings.

Committed to environmental improvement initiatives, the University of East Anglia began distributing the iPad to its senior staff in early 2012 to reduce paper generated by meetings and other communications, and encourage better collaboration and remote productivity.

The challenge was how to provide staff with the convenience, mobility and resource-saving benefits of the iPad while maintaining the security required in a dynamic enterprise environment. This is a new challenge in the rapidly growing consumerized-IT environment and solutions are often piecemeal, requiring a lengthy implementation process. Jon Woodley, head of systems for the University's Information Services Directorate, discovered the simplicity of mobilEcho in his search for a single solution to provide enterprise-level security without interfering with the iPad's ease of use.

"We installed our first trial on 15 iPads in under a day," he commented. "mobilEcho just worked, with no complex deployment or lengthy learning curve. The user can start the app and go straight to their files, just as they would with a desktop or laptop joined to our Active Directory. Nothing else in the market allows you to do that in such a transparent and easy manner."

Users that had already been using consumer-oriented, browser-based file storage solutions found that mobilEcho replaced those solutions in a very simple way, ensuring that files could be accessed simply and easily, without compromising university standards of privacy and security. Productivity improved due to the ability to access files - even on the server.

"When we installed mobilEcho, it enabled us to get secure file access, even in the middle of a meeting," said Iain Reeman, ICT systems director for the university's Information Services Directorate. "I can pull up a document to reinforce or support an argument, which is absolutely fantastic. Previously, if someone asked a question that required finding a reference document on the server, you'd have to get back to them later. Now I can look up the answer and give it straight away," he said.

To learn more about the University of East Anglia's use of mobilEcho, click here to read the full case study.

GroupLogic®, an Acronis company, offers organizations of all sizes easy-to-manage, simple, and secure file access on today's emerging computing platforms, from mobile devices to desktops. GroupLogic products help organizations improve collaboration without compromising corporate, privacy and content protection standards. By helping organizations ensure critical data is available and protected at all times, Acronis is at the forefront of meeting the demands created by powerful market forces such as BYOD, mobility and hybrid computing environments. Acquired by Acronis in 2012, GroupLogic empowers enterprise users to access, sync and share files between PCs, Macs, mobile devices, enterprise servers and NAS storage devices. The company's proven products - mobilEcho™, activEcho™, ExtremeZ-IP™, ArchiveConnect™, and MassTransit™ - are used by more than 7,000 organizations worldwide.

The University of East Anglia (UEA) is an internationally renowned university that provides top quality academic, social and cultural facilities to over 14,000 students.

UEA is ranked in the top one percent of universities in the world and is consistently in the top ten for student satisfaction. It is a leading member of the Norwich Research Park, one of Europe's biggest concentrations of researchers in the fields of environment, health and plant science.

GroupLogic®, activEcho™, mobilEcho™, ExtremeZ-IP®, MassTransit®, Zidget®, ShadowConnect™ and ArchiveConnect™ are all registered or unregistered trademarks of GroupLogic, Inc. All other trademarks referenced herein are the property of their respective owners.