[windows tablet] 30 Surface RT's... What to do with them?

[fairm010]

We have 30 Surface RT's here and I am at a loss with them at the moment.

 

I see two options with them.

 

1) Use Local accounts on them, they can be used for web browsing, office suite. Prevents use of Apps.

 

2) Use a shared MS account on them all. Can use Apps using this method but it requires a sign in at the start and my concern is, what if the MS account password is changed. Will that lock all 30 surfaces out?

 

Please can someone with knowledge of these things get back to me on what I can do with them.

 

The head is pushing toward shared (trolley) use.

[BKGarry]

We use them with our teaching assistants, they have their own microsoft accounts for logging onto the machines, and then we connect O365 up to outlook and one drive etc, they access SIMS through Bromcoms Teachers Web Folder and they get to treat it like their own personal device.

[fairm010]

See I'd prefer to give them out, 1:1 style. I want to try to build up enough evidence as to why we should do that.

[BKGarry]

They are really designed for 1:1, especially since you have to have a Microsoft Live account to use on them.

[fairm010]

Just as I thought. Thanks. Anyone else use them?

[fairm010]

Can anyone help?

[BKGarry]

Send them back and get 15 pros

[BKGarry]

On a more serious note though. Are you O365 or google apps?

[fairm010]

Fully O365.

[BKGarry]

It's a shame you cannot logon to them directly with the users existing 365 accounts. Don't know if anyone has managed that.

[ICTDirect_Dave]

Build a rather expensive house of cards?

[localzuk]

We use them as option 1.

[gshaw]

It's a shame you cannot logon to them directly with the users existing 365 accounts. Don't know if anyone has managed that.

 

Why Microsoft haven't pulled their finger out and sorted this is the biggest mystery of 8.1 \ Surface (imo) - why have a professional grade tablet and enterprise level cloud then nobble it by using consumer grade accounts to log into them?!

 

For the couple we've issued to staff thus far I've created a Microsoft Account using the same email as their college account so as far as they're concerned it looks the same. Only issue is passwords will go out of sync over time but there's no way around that right now really.

Edited June 10, 2014 by gshaw

[localzuk]

Why Microsoft haven't pulled their finger out and sorted this is the biggest mystery of 8.1 \ Surface (imo) - why have a professional grade tablet and enterprise level cloud then nobble it by using consumer grade accounts to log into them?!

 

You can hook them up to Windows InTune, however it is *very* expensive. No-one has been able to get me pricing for it other than telling me things like £60k per year.

[nadeem]

We use a cohort of them with option 1 - and removed most of the icons to limit their (obvious) usage.

 

We also have given them to some individuals (after making their staff emails, the MS account as well)

[fairm010]

Option 1 seems to be the common usage and was my preference however you cannot download apps.

 

Reading this http://download.microsoft.com/download/E/C/8/EC839D39-0059-4E66-A024-F795DD6CBD81/Deploying%20Windows%20RT%208.1%20-%20A%20Guide%20for%20Education.pdf You can sideload them, but you need another product key!

[seawolf]

I WOULD suggest selling them except that they seem to be pretty much worthless on the second hand market. I've been trying to sell one for months with no takers and am now considering accepting a decent bottle of wine or a couple of movie tickets in exchange for it. And it's a 64GB model.

 

Surface RT aka Zune 2.0...

[fiza]

We have 30 Surface RT's here and I am at a loss with them at the moment.

 

I see two options with them.

 

1) Use Local accounts on them, they can be used for web browsing, office suite. Prevents use of Apps.

 

2) Use a shared MS account on them all. Can use Apps using this method but it requires a sign in at the start and my concern is, what if the MS account password is changed. Will that lock all 30 surfaces out?

 

Please can someone with knowledge of these things get back to me on what I can do with them.

 

The head is pushing toward shared (trolley) use.

 

We use them with option 1. We have a script they run to connect them to shared drives. They are used by our SEN staff to support students.

[BKGarry]

@fiza could I possibly have a copy of that script?

[gshaw]

I WOULD suggest selling them except that they seem to be pretty much worthless on the second hand market. I've been trying to sell one for months with no takers and am now considering accepting a decent bottle of wine or a couple of movie tickets in exchange for it. And it's a 64GB model.

 

Surface RT aka Zune 2.0...

 

I'll trade you bottles of wine for it

 

You can hook them up to Windows InTune, however it is *very* expensive. No-one has been able to get me pricing for it other than telling me things like £60k per year.

 

That'll give you MDM management but still doesn't solve how to give a user in your organisation a turnkey solution where they can take a tablet, sign in using an existing account and Metro apps use their O365 login seamlessly.

 

It just seems so silly having to sign into Lync, then OneNote, then Office when the account info should be sitting in the OS then provided to the apps without further user effort.

 

Ironically the devices work better in the consumer space where MS have barely any market share (tablet wise particularly) yet the enterprise market that makes the money seems to be treated as a second rate citizen.

Edited June 10, 2014 by gshaw

[fairm010]

It would seem that the majority uses Option 1. This (to my knowledge and MS documentation) prevents you using Apps. The head wants Apps to be used.

[nadeem]

I fibbed we use option 2 (hadn't read it properly) - one account on all our tablets - we have a small list of apps we've downloaded.

[nickbro]

Pricing for Intune in $ is available on microsoft's website: Windows Intune.

 

Basically you need to add SCCM (£1 per user on EES) and then Intune on ontop (£3.90)

[fairm010]

Thats quite pricey for a small school. Also the MS docu I attached says that using one account on more than one device breaks their EULA.

[fiza]

surfacelogon.txt

@fiza could I possibly have a copy of that script?

 

Nothing complicated. Substitute your own share names. Couldn't upload as bat file so its just a txt file.