International Business College finds an all-in-one solution with Airtame

The challenge

IBC was facing a common issue – their rooms had wires everywhere. There were a variety of cables for many different devices, which ended up routed over their floors. As a business school, the view and design of their buildings are important to them, so the mess of wires had to go. They required a wireless screen sharing solution that worked across a variety of technologies and platforms. With an internal strategy of “No surprises,” they needed a solution that worked effortlessly from day one. 

A solution for wireless screen sharing, with digital signage and cloud management too

IBC tested a variety of solutions, technologies and platforms, and found them lacking for their needs – there were a lot of limitations. Allan Fog Nielsen, IT Director at IBC, heard about Airtame from several sources during this search. After discussing it with a colleague from another business school, he saw it mentioned online a few weeks later. When he then was told to try it by a supplier, they decided to test it out. 

After setting their Airtame test devices up and discovering the ease of use, they purchased an additional 30 devices. Educators quickly took to the new solution – as Mr Nielsen states, “Our teachers found out it was actually quite easy to use, and they were hooked.” 

There are now 180 screens enabled by Airtame throughout the college, with plans to expand to 400 products to cover all their rooms. Further simplifying their set-up, the college has moved from several different platforms for displays, like projectors and smartboards, to just large monitors. 

While IBC had been looking for a wireless screen sharing solution, they soon discovered the digital signage capabilities available through Airtame Cloud. As Mr Neisen states, “ When we speak about signage, now every room is used to display information.” The PowerPoint app and their identity management system are used to display information, an internal web solution was developed to display their calendar, and they also use it to provide additional information in their meeting rooms. “There are no limitations – it’s very good.”

One way digital signage is utilized through Airtame? A video wall! As Mr Nielsen describes, “(Airtame) is the general product for screen sharing and displaying information. At one location, we have an eight-screen wall where Airtame products were combined to create a large video wall.”

Cost-effectiveness and simplicity combine to make teaching easier

Wireless screen sharing has been made simpler – educators find Airtame easy to use and see it as a product that always works. Mr Nielsen’s favourite feature of the product is how “It’s cable-free, wireless, and rocksteady. It works every time – no matter what device you come into our college with, it works.” Through the use of Airtame products, educators are now using other applications to their fullest capacity. They can easily share information to front-of-room displays without having to turn around and display it off their own devices. 

When it comes to digital signage through Cloud, “As the cloud solution came out, it was a game-changer in terms of signage. We had an old signage solution that was quite expensive; with Airtame Cloud we could almost instantly eliminate the daily cost of maintaining the system. The first year we converted Airtame to our signage solution, it has paid out for us.” IBC can now change displayed information whenever they need to, which has been a help at the start of the school year. During the first week, they could change their slides daily, so that information was available to a student who needed it at the right time, in the right place. This capability is also appreciated by their IT staff – “ I believe our support team is very happy with this as they were not as busy as usual.”

With all-in-one cloud management, the workload on their IT support staff has lightened when it comes to maintenance. “Upgrading and maintaining central management is very good for us – it’s efficient and cheap. Before we had the cloud solution, we had to deploy an IT supporter to update every room, and as the numbers grew, it was quite a heavy workload for them. It’s quite easy now – just one employee does it weekly.” 

To sum it up: “Overall, it’s one of the most cost-effective products we have, and we have tried a lot. I think this single product has made teaching a lot easier.”