Higher Ed Organizations Go Public with Windows 8 Deployments

Four higher education institutions have recently gone public with their adoption of Microsoft's Windows 8.

In an effort to complement its bring-your-own-device (BYOD) program, Florida's Barry University will install the operating system on all of its 2,815 desktop and laptop computers. The move is designed to improve productivity, collaboration, and access to resources for 8,700 students and more than 1,200 full-time employees at the university, as Windows 8 will be integrated with the school's current Office 365 for Education deployment.

"We are moving to Windows 8 to give our students the opportunity to work on real-world projects with technology they will eventually see in the workplace, experiences they won't get on other specialty devices," said Barry's Chief Information Officer Yvette Brown, in a prepared statement. "I think Windows 8 will be easier for those who are not as tech-savvy because of the intuitive user interface with touch capabilities. I love the fact that I can actually get real work done on my Windows 8 tablet."

Pace University in New York has already installed Windows 8 throughout its labs amidst a rapid classroom technology build-out. The school is currently testing and piloting various projects en route installation of the platform on approximately 10,000 desktops and devices.

In Maine, Thomas College has installed the OS on all desktops and laptops and entered a Microsoft Campus Agreement with the company, which allows students to download Windows 8 and Office 2013 for free. As part of the agreement, faculty and staff can also download Windows 8 for a reduced cost of $14, and Windows and Mac versions of Office 2013 for $14 and $28, respectively.

The Apollo Group, which owns several for-profit higher education and online learning institutions across the United States, is testing Windows 8 in its product support and validation lab and providing the OS "as a virtual desktop via Hyper-V to application developers and student support teams for testing student-facing applications," according to a Microsoft release. The company, with approximately 324,000 students and 25,500 employees, is working on a standard desktop image with Office 2013 to be rolled out soon.

Microsoft is holding 700 Windows in the Classroom seminars in the U.S. this school year. To register for a seminar, visit mie.ncce.org.

More information about Windows 8 is available at windows.microsoft.com.

About the Author

Joshua Bolkan is contributing editor for Campus Technology, THE Journal and STEAM Universe. He can be reached at [email protected].

Featured

  • AI robot with cybersecurity symbol on its chest

    Microsoft Adds New Agentic AI Tools to Security Copilot

    Microsoft has announced a major expansion of its AI-powered cybersecurity platform, introducing a suite of autonomous agents to help organizations counter rising threats and manage the growing complexity of cloud and AI security.

  • modern college building with circuit and brain motifs

    Anthropic Launches Claude for Education

    Anthropic has announced a version of its Claude AI assistant tailored for higher education institutions. Claude for Education "gives academic institutions secure, reliable AI access for their entire community," the company said, to enable colleges and universities to develop and implement AI-enabled approaches across teaching, learning, and administration.

  • central cloud platform connected to various AI icons—including a brain, robot, and network nodes

    Linux Foundation to Host Protocol for AI Agent Interoperability

    The Linux Foundation has announced it will host the Agent2Agent (A2A) protocol project, an open standard originally developed by Google to support secure communication and interoperability among AI agents.

  • open laptop in a college classroom with holographic AI icons like a brain and data charts rising from the screen

    4 Ways Universities Are Using Google AI Tools for Learning and Administration

    In a recent blog post, Google shared an array of education customer stories, showcasing ways institutions are using AI tools like Gemini and NotebookLM to transform both learning and administrative tasks.