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Hanover PSD Deploys Remote Desktop Clients for High School Students

• By Leila Meyer
• 07/26/12

High school students in Pennsylvania's Hanover Public School District now have browser-based access to Microsoft Office and other hosted Windows apps from their Chromebooks, laptops, and tablets, anywhere they have an Internet connection.

The district has implemented Ericom AccessNow, an HTML5 remote desktop protocol (RDP) client that runs entirely within any HTML5-compatible browser, such as Chrome, Firefox, and Safari, without installing any software on the end-user device.

Before selecting Ericom AccessNow, the school district evaluated other solutions. The district then made the decision to go with Ericom AccessNow. According to Fry, district personnel found AccessNow easier to implement than alternatives and liked that it worked on any HTML5-capable device.

"Ericom AccessNow fits right in with our 1:1 and Hybrid computing vision," said Fry. "We needed a simple, installation-free solution to allow students using Chromebooks or any other device to easily access Pennsylvania Department of Education Classroom Diagnostic Tools (CDT), Microsoft Office, Microsoft Access, and other hosted Windows apps."

Key features of Ericom AccessNow include:

• Support for Chromebooks, iPads, Android tablets, smart phones, Windows, Linux, Mac, netbooks, and ultrabooks;
• Consistent user interface across all devices;
• No infrastructure requirement for deployment, upgrades, or patches;
• Ericom SSL Secure Gateway (no SSL VPN deployment needed);
• Support for existing SSL VPNs; and
• Integration with homegrown and enterprise portals.

Hanover Public School District is located in Hanover, PA, and serves approximately 1,600 K-12 students at its three elementary schools, one middle school, and one high school.

Further information about Ericom AccessNow is available on the Ericom site.