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Getting the most out of
Office 365 with Lumia
King’s College London
Case study
King’s College London is dedicated to
advancing knowledge, learning and
understanding in order to improve the
world we live in. The right technology
is vital to their strategy of delivering a
great student experience, excellence in
research and efficient admin.
Nick Leake, Chief Information Officer, wanted a new
mobile solution that would improve connectivity for
academics and administrators and fit with the existing
Microsoft ecosystem at King’s. He turned to Lumia.
Researching the options
“BlackBerry devices offer a limited number of applications,
and the BlackBerry Enterprise Server infrastructure carries
a support overhead,” explains Nick. He wanted to move
away from BlackBerry as the standard device at King’s to
more affordable devices that would help the university get
the most out of Office 365.
King’s reviewed its options. It decided against Android
because Nick believes they are “fragmented and insecure”.
iPhones were too expensive, and Nick had concerns around
their short battery life.
Customer snapshot
Overview
One of the world’s top 20 universities
Size
27,000 students and 7,000 staff
Website
www.kcl.ac.uk
Solution
400 x Lumia 635 devices
“The Lumia 635
provides a good
balance between size
and portability at a
great price point.”
Nick Leake
Chief Information Officer,
King’s College London
“I’m amazed at how long the battery lasts. You can get
two days out of these Lumia devices.”
Nick Leake
Chief Information Officer, King’s College London
Stay connected for longer
Nick and his colleagues are impressed by the amount of time
they can stay connected with Lumia. “People talk about how
they used to have to charge their Android phones halfway
through the day,” he explains. “These devices keep going for
much longer.”
The easy-to-replace battery is a real bonus too. “The ability to
pop the back off and replace the battery is fantastic,” he adds.
“You don’t have to carry your charger with you or worry about
having to find a charging point.”
A good memory
Memory matters to the university team. Nick is impressed by
the fact that, “Unlike other smartphones, which are limited to
the size of memory they ship with, the Windows Phone has a
microSD slot that is capable of handling cards of up to 128GB.”
“As the next generation of collaboration capability comes
through with Windows 10, we would expect it to be best
supported on Windows Phone.”
Nick Leake
Chief Information Officer, King’s College London
A good fit for King’s
“The Lumia 635 is a very capable and productive device with
some really nice built-in features,” says Nick, but adds that,
“You’re not just choosing a product these days, you’re choosing
an ecosystem and Lumia is part of the Windows ecosystem.”
As a Microsoft house, King’s was already using Windows
desktops, Surface tablets, Microsoft apps such as Dynamics,
and Office 365. The introduction of Lumia with Windows
Phone was the next part of what Nick calls “a coherent story”.
“I’m really enjoying
the device. It’s great
for office productivity
on the move but also
offers great apps for
my personal use too.”
“The fact that Lumia is part of Microsoft certainly makes life
easier,” he says. “The rollout has gone extremely well and the
training support from Microsoft was really helpful.”
Nick Leake
Chief Information Officer,
King’s College London
Cortana knows best
microsoft.com/mobile/lumiaforbusiness
King’s has developed its own applications for Lumia devices.
It’s also been putting many of the Windows apps to the test.
“Cortana is surprisingly useful,” says Nick. “It makes it really easy
to search for information.” He and one of his suppliers – an
iPhone fan – recently had a Cortana versus Siri contest. “How
old is Larry Ellison?” Nick won, thanks to Cortana. “Cortana left
Siri spinning,” he laughs.
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