Bridge the Gap Between Understanding and Meeting Student Needs

For years, LabStats and AppsAnywhere have crossed paths, solving similar challenges for higher education, sharing a similar mission, and even many of the same customers. Over the last few months, the two solutions have come together as one to offer a "better together" story for higher education IT departments. By combining the data-driven insights of LabStats with the powerful delivery capabilities of AppsAnywhere, universities can finally bridge the gap between understanding student needs and meeting them seamlessly.

The synergy: data meets delivery

LabStats has long been the gold standard for helping IT teams make informed decisions regarding hardware usage, licensing control, and budget settings. It tells you exactly what is happening in your labs. AppsAnywhere takes that story to the next level by optimizing those spaces and providing a frictionless end-user experience for students and staff.

While LabStats identifies which hardware or software is underutilized, together with AppsAnywhere, it provides the tools to act on that data. For example, by using AppsAnywhere to reduce lab image sizes, institutions can move away from dedicated, discipline-specific labs and instead create multifunctional spaces that serve any student, regardless of their major.

Meeting the expectations of the "AI Generation"

The next generation of students, Generation Alpha, is arriving on campus with vastly different expectations. Recent surveys commissioned by AppsAnywhere show that while 90% of these students plan to attend higher education, only 14% want a campus-only experience. They expect hybrid learning - the ability to work asynchronously and synchronously, whenever and wherever they want.

Our research shows that, 96% of these students expect their college to provide a device, yet many arrive with Chromebooks or tablets that cannot natively run the heavy Windows-based applications required for many courses. AppsAnywhere solves this dilemma by ensuring that complex software works on any device.

How it works: the "magic" of context-aware delivery

AppsAnywhere simplifies software delivery for IT teams stretched thin by limited support and growing requests. It prioritizes multiple delivery methods, depending on admin-set preferences, to optimize for performance or cost, with VDI being not the default, but many times the last resort.

In addition to local install, VDI and direct download, AppsAnywhere brings in more efficient technologies that are better suited to the higher education IT environment:

• Application virtualization This technology allows Windows applications to be streamed to Windows devices on-demand without a traditional installation. There is no "system bloat," and once the initial client is installed, students do not need admin rights to launch software like AutoCAD or MATLAB.

• Cloud Delivery: This browser-based solution runs Windows applications inside a secure virtual environment. It is the ideal catch-all for students using macOS, Chromebooks, or tablets.

The platform is context aware. When a student logs in, AppsAnywhere automatically checks who they are, their device's RAM and GPU, their operating system, and whether they are on or off campus. It then uses a prioritization list to deliver the most efficient and cost-effective version of the software for that specific session.

Quantifiable benefits for LabStats customers

The integration of these products delivers several key benefits to the higher ed IT environment:

• Cost containment: The combination of LabStats’ Remote Access and AppsAnywhere’s application virtualization capabilities make a strong contender to VDI, reducing significantly your reliance on, and cost of virtual machines. One institution estimated VDI cost savings of 60% in addition to serious productivity gains by using this combination to deliver software to campus and personal devices.
• Hardware optimization: By enabling BYOD (Bring Your Own Device) through AppsAnywhere, you can maximize the use of student hardware, reducing the need to constantly refresh underutilized lab machines. AppsAnywhere makes the student experience seamless no matter how old or powerful their device is.
• Powerful analytics: AppsAnywhere provides a centralized dashboard to measure launches across all delivery methods, including on non-managed devices. You can see peak concurrency for specific apps, such as MATLAB or Adobe, and use that data to negotiate more accurate (and often cheaper) licensing agreements with vendors.
• LMS Integration: AppsAnywhere integrates with popular Learning Management Systems like Canvas, Blackboard, and Moodle. Students can simply click an icon within their course page to launch the software they need, without multiple screens or authentication processes.
• Less troubleshooting, more productivity: with AppsAnywhere’s device agnostic software delivery, support tickets become a lot less frequent. Students and faculty can request applications at any time, and IT can provision them within minutes instead of waiting for the end of semester.

The future of the partnership

As LabStats and AppsAnywhere continue to integrate, customers can expect even more synergy. Our ultimate goal is a combined offering that streamlines how universities measure, manage, and deliver digital resources. Together, we are committed to removing barriers to student success, by making it easier for IT teams to thrive in an ever-changing digital landscape.

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