Southern Housing Group (SHG) is undertaking a pilot of mobile thin-client technology that the organisation hopes will improve efficiency and productivity, while also increasing customer satisfaction.

Jan Swanwick, head of IT for the housing association which owns and manages 24,000 homes for more than 48,000 residents, is exploring the extension of Citrix technology from the desktop to mobile employees.

And mobile thin clients could help housing officers and surveyors replace the traditional forms of note taking and data entry.

Thin clients at desktop level have helped Swanwick provide consistent personal computing services to 900 employees during a series of mergers.

“With transformation through mergers and acquisitions, we need an IT infrastructure that can react quickly to changes in business demands and deliver the same quality of high-class systems to all employees from the chief executive down, regardless of location or role,” says Swanwick.

“A traditional desktop infrastructure cannot be easily replaced in one go, which results in lags in deploying new technology and creates a different class system of personal computing for employees.”

Installing thin-client Wyse Winterms ­ and changing control of applications managed by HP blade servers ­ has also helped reduce SHG’s support requirements.

“With thin clients, the need for reactive support drops drastically compared with PCs, and with 60 per cent of the workforce working from multiple locations including their homes and estate offices, they can all access the same personal computing facilities,” says Swanwick.

The success of the back-office implementation means the introduction of Wyse thin-client laptops is now likely.

“Having addressed multiple locations, we can look at true mobile computing by mobilising that desktop experience using Vodafone’s 3G network and Wyse X90 laptops,” says Swanwick.

The organisation completed a proof of concept study to address key concerns, such as network coverage and useful battery life.

And following the study, SHG has started a pilot with 10 housing officers equipped with Wyse mobile terminals and 3G data cards.

The officers are given secure access to all essential desktop-based resources through two-factor authentication.

Data protection issues and recent adverse publicity concerning thefts of laptops holding sensitive information mean Swanwick would only trial a thin-client mobile solution.

“If one of the devices is stolen, it is of no use at all as there is no locally stored data,” he says.

“I would not be confident of having clients’ information handled on laptops. You can encrypt data, but in the current climate you would still attract bad publicity if one were stolen.”

Swanwick says another big plus of the Citrix environment is being able to see who is using what applications, and for how long. Aside from usage issues, there are also cultural concerns.

“Not having to return to the office to process forms is efficient, but people need to be kept in the loop if they do not see their colleagues,” he says.

“If a housing officer is visiting a tenant’s site, the tenant might think typing on a keyboard is rude compared with taking notes.”

The pilot concluded at the end of March. All being well, the technology will be rolled out to all 100 housing officers and considered for other employees such as surveyors.