When a law firm that dates back to the 1790s decides to overhaul its entire IT estate, you’d expect some growing pains. TWM Solicitors, a 240-employee multidisciplinary firm spread across three Surrey offices, proved otherwise.
The Challenge
A few years back, TWM made the strategic call to exit on-premises infrastructure altogether and move to the cloud. The goal was to cut capital expenditures, establish a predictable operating cost model, and accelerate the adoption of new technology within the business. It was a simple order from the C-suite but when execution rolled around it was much harder to coordinate, especially when “moving to the cloud” actually means migrating from Microsoft RDS to Azure Virtual Desktop, shifting backend infrastructure to Azure, upgrading to Microsoft 365, rolling out new practice management software, deploying dual monitors firm-wide, and replacing every endpoint, all at once, all delivered by a four-person IT team.
That’s an ambitious list for any organization. For a firm balancing client deadlines with legal regulatory burdens, it’s even more so.
The Rollout
TWM found 10ZiG through Softcat, a reseller the firm has trusted for over a decade. After a successful trial, TWM procured roughly 240 10ZiG modernized thin clients running Windows IoT LTSC, a locked-down, secure version of Windows 10 with support through February 2032. These aren’t general-purpose PCs doing double duty. Each device serves a single purpose: open an AVD session and nothing else. The endpoints are also tuned to optimize virtual meetings running in AVD, putting the local hardware to work where it matters most.
When parsing the day-to-day management, 10ZiG Manager enabled TWM’s IT team to power devices on and off remotely, automate patch deployment, and keep configurations consistent across all three offices without setting foot on-site. This seemingly “minor convenience” saved hundreds of hours of IT engineering time and the associated travel costs. It also fortified barriers because 10ZiG devices don’t store any local user data. Now, a faulty unit isn’t a fire drill; instead, it’s an easy swap without necessitating data recovery or software reinstallation.
The rollout itself has its own tale. Every device arrived pre-configured and ready to connect, straight out of the box. At TWM’s largest office in Guildford, the IT team unboxed, assembled, mounted and recycled over 100 machines and monitors in a single day.
The Payoff
Then there’s the cost math. At a price comparable to or lower than an equivalent PC, the devices work out to roughly £50 per year when annualized. As Alan Barrett, TWM’s Head of IT, put it: “When you break it down, we’re paying roughly £1 a week for a device with very little day-to-day management required.”
Barrett summed up the bigger picture too: “We’ve made the right decision to invest in 10ZiG modernized thin clients. They’re easy to manage, easy to maintain and the 10ZiG team has been excellent to work with. The burden of desktop management, which used to be time-consuming, boring and frustrating, has simply disappeared.”
That’s the outcome organizations moving toward Microsoft AVD and cloud-based work are after: endpoints that are secure, simple to manage, and operationally invisible. TWM Solicitors is a clear example of what it looks like when the hardware, the management platform, and the cloud strategy all pull in the same direction. If you would like to learn more, read the full TWM Solicitors case study.
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