Canon has clients ranging from small businesses to large enterprises and government departments.
The Challenge
Across Canon’s Australasia offices, more than 1,300 staff were using devices running Microsoft Windows XP, which was rapidly approaching end of life. In addition, hundreds of applications including Microsoft Office 2003, were also nearing or past the end of vendor support. The company needed a rapid upgrade of the end user operating system and rationalisation of their application portfolio, without any disruption to the business.
Canon wanted an infrastructure that reflected the company’s identity as a technology leader, allowed users flexibility, provided secure mobile connectivity and helped the Australian and New Zealand sides of the business to collaborate more effectively.
They were also keen to upgrade their ageing laptop fleet and take advantage of the latest touchscreen technology.
The Datacom Solution
We designed a programme to migrate all of Canon’s Windows XP devices to the latest version of Windows 8, and to repackage approximately 100 business-critical applications to be compatible with the new operating system.
We deployed operating system builds, applications and software updates, while also providing inventory and reporting. Citrix XenDesktop 7.1 provided a unified desktop presentation internally and externally, and cost-effectively, to remote users in India and the Philippines – all aligned with the standard environment. Mobile devices and thin clients are supported, as well as applications for office-bound desktops and laptops.
Citrix software also enabled the delivery of legacy applications via Windows 7 and XP virtual machines where these wouldn’t run on a more modern operating system.
The result was an up-to-date, supported and manageable IT infrastructure to service the end user computing requirements of Canon’s office and mobile user community.
The partnership has been a successful and rewarding one. Canon presented a 2014 Supplier of the Year Award to Datacom to recognise “superior service, exceptional performance and partnership with Canon”.
“Datacom is a fantastic partner, working with Canon across the region to drive key change programmes successfully. Datacom has the flexibility to work in Canon’s ever - changing environment.”
Luke Clark, Senior GM for IT (CIO) - Canon Oceania