Choosing Office 365 over Google Apps for more than a million students across Brazil
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Today?s post was written by Mauricio Oliveira, IT infrastructure and technology manager at Kroton.
Kroton is the largest private education provider in Brazil, serving more than a million students of all ages across our vast country. As a leader in both distance learning and on-campus education, we have always believed in the power of technology to transform and improve learning. Giving our students familiarity with the latest tools is also critical to their ability to successfully position themselves for the latest job opportunities.
When we merged with Anhanguera in 2014, we realized it was an opportunity to start with a clean slate and standardize on the productivity tools that would best support our students and organization going forward. Kroton?s staff was using Office 365, and everyone at Anhanguera was using Google Apps for Work. We performed a very deep evaluation of both solutions, comparing every feature that mattered to us, over the course of three months. In our comparison, Office 365 emerged the clear winner for a number of reasons.
For one, Office 365 makes it easy for us to give students what they need to work together from anywhere. When they register for a class, they immediately get access to a virtual classroom with learning materials, collaboration spaces and more. The entire process is automated, so we can be sure everyone is getting the best tools for their education. We?re very excited about Yammer Enterprise, which will enable us to provide a protected social networking environment where students can really get to know each other and benefit from multiple perspectives and skills; this is an especially valuable opportunity given the breadth of diversity in our student populations. Plus, we?re trying Office Mix, an add-in for Microsoft PowerPoint, to deliver internal trainings, and combining access to our three learning management systems through Active Directory and Office 365. Whether we?re using an on-premises, cloud or hybrid model, we know Office 365 will support it seamlessly.
As time goes on, we plan to expand the boundaries of what we can do with Office 365 and integrate it even more closely with our existing systems. For example, we?re using technology to match our students? skills and locations with employment opportunities, while also gathering information on what?s most in demand from new hires. We?re thinking about integrating this program with Office 365 single sign-on for greater platform control and interoperability.
At Kroton, we feel a strong sense of responsibility to prepare our students for a dynamic, fast-changing world, and to increase economic prosperity in our country and our region. Microsoft is a great business partner for our mission, and Office 365 is the right choice for us.
For more information, read the full story here at Why Microsoft.