HomeNewsColt transforms End User Computing with ‘Workspace as a Service’

Colt transforms End User Computing with ‘Workspace as a Service’

London, 18 February 2014

Colt has announced the launch of its Workspace as a Service offering. The new service will meet the growing need for employees to get anytime, anywhere access to business applications and data from multiple devices. It will also benefit IT departments by simplifying maintenance and ensuring enterprise-grade protection of business applications and assets. Designed for use by enterprise customers, and also for delivery by systems integrators, the Colt service ensures a consistent user experience on smartphones, tablets and PCs. With simple per user pricing, Colt’s Workspace as a Service will enable IT departments to control and manage costs while scaling deployments up and down as business needs change.

Employees across all organisations expect to be able to access business applications and data at the point of need, and increasingly using a device of their own choice. The need for mobility and flexibility that led to the dominance of the laptop has been replaced with a demand for flexibility and employee driven choice of end user device and operating system. According to Forrester Research, Inc., nearly one third (29%) of the global workforce use three or more devices, work from multiple locations and use many applications1 while Gartner reports that 38 percent of companies expect to stop providing devices to workers by 20162. However, only half of companies report having a BYOD policy3 and 94% say a network security breach is their highest BYOD concern4. IT is under pressure to balance demand for access to the applications that employees need to do their jobs from an increasingly
diverse set of devices with the requirement to keep data secure and costs low.

Hugo Harber, VP Portfolio & Strategy at Colt: “The way that IT departments need to deliver end user computing has changed. Ten years ago, we all had standard issue desktops, refreshed every 3 years and maintained by a team of desktop maintenance experts. Now employees expect to be able to access business systems from multiple devices, many of their own choosing, but the IT department still has the responsibility for data compliance and 24×7 access to all of the business critical systems we depend upon. All while trying to keep controlling costs and aligning with strategic business objectives.”

Colt’s Workspace as a Service offering provides employees with an easy to use “workspace” irrespective of the device used, and helps IT departments to meet the challenge of balancing employee demands and corporate requirements. Key benefits of the service include:

Supports BYOD and workforce mobility

  • Provides easy to use, policy defined “workspace” access for employees so that they can access applications and data using smartphones, tablets or PCs.
  • Single workspace for each user provides secure access to business data and assets anytime, anywhere, from any device

Simplifies IT management and support

  • IT departments can easily deploy upgrades across systems and countries without impacting the end user experience.
  • Reduces helpdesk admin, management and deployment costs

Increases security and policy compliance

  • Protects corporate data and assets
  • Prevents users from using unauthorised devices in the business environment
  • Enables employees to securely collaborate with clients
  • Provides the systems and audit trails to underpin BYOD policy

Service tailored to business needs and user experience

  • Comprehensive assess and design approach provides an understanding of each customer’s requirements, and importantly, the usage and applications profile resulting in the best network, compute and storage configuration for each user to ensure successful rollout of the enterprise user computing service across the organisation.
  • Proof of concepts can be built and deployed for testing by both business and IT community, successfully demonstrating the improved user experience (see Hammersmith & Fulham Council case study and Colt’s own internal Office of the Future project.)

“With this new service, Colt is giving CIOs the freedom to concentrate on delivering business objectives, rather than managing technology,” continues Harber. “The service delivers flexibility, continuous access and per seat pricing that helps to reduce and control costs, and delivers the ability to easily scale up, or down.

“We have built on our experience of successfully delivering VDI services internally at Colt where we now have over 2000 VDI users, and to customers such as Hammersmith & Fulham Council in the UK, to design a flexible Workspace as a Service offering based on VMware’s Horizon Suite. This addresses the commercial, technology and service barriers that have stopped many enterprises adopting Workspace as a Service, or Desktop as a Service, offerings to date. Colt’s network and datacentre footprint across Europe means that we can provide customers with a wide choice of hosting locations, continuous availability and low latency connectivity as well as ensuring the end to end performance of their workspace solution.”

Colt’s Workspace as a Service offering is part of Colt’s Optimum services, the direct-to-enterprise portfolio spanning IT, Network and Communication Services, which are differentiated by their combination of network reach, integrated technology, service management and commercial flexibility.

Additional information on Colt´s Workspace as a Service can be found here.

About Colt

Colt is the information delivery platform, enabling its customers to deliver, share, process and store their vital business information. An established leader in delivering integrated computing and network services to major organisations, midsized businesses and wholesale customers. Colt operates in 22 European countries and the US with a 46,000km European network and transatlantic network capacity. Colt has metropolitan area networks in 41 major European cities with direct fibre connections into 19,800 buildings and 20 carrier-neutral Colt data centres.

In addition to its direct sales capability, Colt has four indirect channels to market; Agent, Franchise, Distributor and Wholesale which includes Carriers, Service Providers, VARs and Voice Resellers.

Colt is listed on the London Stock Exchange (COLT).

Press Contacts


Colt

Paula Muezerie
DDI: +44 (0) 20 7947 1035
Mobile: +44 (0) 785 5301 078
Email:[email protected]

Octopus, Katie Potts
T: +44 (0)8453 700 655
Mobile: +44 (0)7710 977 249
Email: [email protected]


1 Forrester, 2013 Mobile Workforce Adoption Trends by Ted Schadler, February 4, 2013
2 Gartner, Bring Your Own Device: The Facts and the Future, David A. Willis, 11 April 2013
3 iPass, 2013 iPass/Mobile Iron Mobile Enterprise Report. The Enterprise Mobility Guide for IT Management and CIOs
4 TechTarget, Consumerisation of IT and BYOD plans. Purchase Intentions – Spring 2013

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