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Faculty of Humanities

Applications streaming software coming to PC clusters

11 Jul 2024

A message from our AppsAnywhere business owners Professor Peter R Green and Professor Caroline Bowsher

We are pleased to announce that the University is moving along the journey to launch our new applications streaming software, AppsAnywhere. It is planned that this browser-based portal will be how our academics and students will access all teaching and learning applications in our managed PC clusters.

This work is being delivered by the Evolve programme’s Colleague and Student Compute (C&SC) project, who are providing a foundation for more flexible delivery of applications in the future.

Subject to IT Services and end-user testing and approvals, we are targeting a go-live of the new software delivery portal in early September. Initially, around 40 applications will be available to stream from all managed PC cluster devices, and we will share a list once testing is complete. The remaining applications will be available on PCs locally, as they are today, and they will be accessed via the portal. More applications will be made available to stream over time.

What have we done so far: 

  • Started working with our streaming software provider –AppsAnywhere a UK-based higher education sector specialistwith a mature solution used by 2.5m students worldwide (including many peer institutions in the UK).
  • Academic representatives have validated system requirements to shape the design – ensuring it meets your needs.
  • To test that the solution can meet these requirements, we have completed an initial proof of concept throughout June.

Next steps

Wider system testing has started, with further user experience and support testing taking place in August where we will welcome input from students, academics, and other interested groups. If you would like to be involved or engaged directly, please contact lileth.mcadam-leng@manchester.ac.uk

We expect to start wider system demonstrations and engagement in August in preparation for go live.

Need to know

To ensure optimum performance for the coming year, each summer IT Services refreshes applications on cluster PCs and only those requested for the following year are re-loaded onto the PCs. Please see this StaffNet article for further information.

In preparation for launching AppsAnywhere, if you have an outstanding request for an application for the start of year, please email Lydia Towell urgently at lydia.towell@manchester.ac.uk

We are grateful for your support and look forward to sharing more information with you around the launch of AppsAnywhere in future. In the meantime, information on the Evolve programme can be found on the Evolve page on StaffNet.