Panasonic joins Microsoft Cloud Solution Provider programme
Panasonic TOUGHBOOK is the first rugged-focused mobile computing provider to join the Microsoft Cloud Solution Provider programme that enables them to offer customers more simplified deployment and management services. Customers can now slash IT administration time and radically improve the user experience when deploying new Panasonic rugged Windows mobile devices by using the Windows Autopilot cloud-based configuration and deployment service.
When customers order their Panasonic TOUGHBOOK notebooks or tablets with Windows 10 Pro they can choose to manage the configuration and deployment using Windows Autopilot. Panasonic then pre-register the device hardware in the cloud from its European configuration and service centre in Cardiff. This service enables all the configuration settings for each particular device to be uploaded to the cloud. The devices are then dispatched directly to the users, who simply switch them on straight out of the box, enter their credentials and the device is configured automatically over the cloud to deliver the user’s specific business set-up.
“This new deployment option is an immediate benefit for customers with users in disparate locations or with hundreds of devices to configure,” explained Jon Tucker, General Manager for Solutions and Engineering at Panasonic Mobile Solutions Business Division Europe. “It removes the need for the IT teams to image each device and automates the deployment and management process – lowering effort and costs.”
“Traditionally, IT pros have spent a lot of their time building and customizing the images that will be deployed to corporate devices,” said Brad Anderson, Corporate Vice President, Microsoft 365, at Microsoft. “Windows Autopilot introduces an entirely new approach. From the perspective of the end user, it just takes a few simple operations to make their device ready to use. From the perspective of the IT pro, Autopilot handles the imaging and registration – the end user simply needs to connect to a network and to verify their credentials. Everything beyond that is automated.”
Windows Autopilot is designed to simplify all parts of the lifecycle of Windows devices, for both IT and end users, from initial deployment through the eventual end of life. Leveraging cloud-based services, it can reduce the overall costs for deploying, managing, and retiring devices by reducing the amount of time that IT needs to spend on these processes and the amount of infrastructure that they need to maintain, while ensuring ease of use for all types of end users.
