Swets is the world‘s leading subscription services company. Its products and services power the work of professionals and students in thousands of academic, corporate, government and medical organisations across the globe. Swets has more than 100 years experience of simplifying the way organisations acquire, access and manage subscriptions. With 60,000 customers operating in 160 different countries around the world, Swets help to manage 1.8m subscriptions annually – allowing its customers to optimise what they spend and gain the freedom of time from administration.

Thin client support for widescreen was the challenge With more then 20 offices and 800 employees, Swets moved to a server-based computing model six years ago to simplify the management and support of its IT infrastructure. When it was time to upgrade the mixture of PCs, thin clients and monitors on the desktops, Swets wanted to make improvements to the desktop working environment for its employees. “Our employees are often working with two applications at the same time receiving information through applications such as Microsoft Outlook and transferring it to our own proprietary information management system working on the mainframe,” said Martijn Uijldert, IT Manager for Swets Technical Services.

“This can make work difficult as they have to switch between applications or have one session open over the other.” Swets was looking to install widescreen monitors with 1680 x 1050 high resolution to allow staff to have both applications fully open on the screen at the same time. “In addition, we are working towards a paperless office and there was an increasing need to view documents in PDF format on the screen,” added Martijn. “Wide screen monitors would also make this easier for staff.” But the Swets team was struggling to find a manufacturer that supported the widescreens until their IT partner Square One Solutions introduced them to IGEL.

“Square One Solutions provided a demonstration model of the IGEL-3210 LX Compact and we were very impressed with its flexibility, manageability and the number of digital service features it provided,” said Nico Semp, Infrastructure Specialist at Swets. At the request of Square One Solutions, IGEL also developed a solution to rotate the widescreen image, allowing high screen, as well as widescreen views on the monitors. “With this solution, the IGEL unit was perfect for our needs,” said Nico. “In addition, it came bundled with the IGEL Remote Management Suite software which is a very powerful and well designed tool for managing thin clients.” The Remote Management Suite is designed for setting up thin clients with the right profile when they first attach to the network, changing the settings of the device or its digital services, re-imaging devices mid-life when new firmware becomes available, as well as diagnostics and support.

To date, Swets has deployed 150 IGEL at its Netherlands head office and is about to trial the units at its international offices, with a total roll-out of up to 500 units. “Square One Solutions and IGEL have been very responsive to our needs,” concluded Martijn.