Enterprise Mobility Summit 2014: Law firm DLA Piper mulls Microsoft Surface rollout

Windows ecosystem preferred by DLA Piper, but it may take employees a while to buy-in

Global law firm DLA Piper could take on Microsoft's Surface device as part of its next technology refresh, according to the firm's head of applications technology, Jason Plant.

The firm refreshed its desktop systems four years ago but Plant, who was speaking at Computing's Enterprise Mobility Summit in London today, said that he "can't see us putting desktops out there again, maybe not even laptops".

"We would be looking at [Microsoft] Surface-type devices or hybrid devices, so that you can use them like laptops and then snap off the keyboard and use them as a tablet," he said.

A big motivation in using the Surface device is that it uses the Windows 8 operating system, which Plant believes is a good choice for DLA Piper as desktops and apps-based devices can be managed under one ecosystem. That is, he believes, "if Microsoft can crack the confusion that flummoxes the consumer market".

The firm has had issues with its lawyers in the past, as they preferred the idea of an iPhone than the BlackBerry that DLA Piper provides as a corporate device.

"Knowing our lawyers [there will be difficulties again]. For cost reasons we try to push the BlackBerry, but they want to use the iPhone, so we're trying to come up with a way to have Surface for a corporate device, but still being able to deliver our [corporate] services and support in the same way to iPads by wrapping our app with Internet Explorer and delivering this to iOS," he said.