The Future of Desktop Management

March 22, 2011

The desktop of tomorrow will be mobile, a phone, smart device or a laptop and of course there will be some fixed desktops included in there too. Businesses already need to be catering for an increased proportion of mobile workers with this number expected to grow significantly in future.

The challenge that those in charge of desktop management face is not how to deliver enterprise-level services to individuals across a diverse set of hardware and network platforms but to improve experience and enhance productivity in the workplace:- the art of delivering the correct services to the correct people at the correct time.

Desktop estates are continuing to age a direct result of reduced spending throughout the recession and a reluctance to move away from Windows XP. The consequence of this is often an increase in spending on maintenance and other hidden costs as business users look to find ways around using their company desktops, which may be nearly obsolete while IT burdens the costs.

Refreshing desktop estates is now on the priority list for many organisations and research into buyer behaviour suggests that Windows 7 is becoming the preferred corporate desktop operating system, helping to realign home PC use with their office desktops. As desktop usage is becoming more and more mobile, IT needs to support a wider range of devices than ever before.

This is where desktop virtualisation can help, it allows IT managers to ensure applications are given to the right people, processing load is centralised to servers rather than mobile devices. In addition, virtualisation technology allows laptops to be used at home while connected to the home network without the danger of a desktop being compromised by a less secure environment.

If the entire desktop is virtualised it means that there are no hardware dependencies and the image created can be standardised across a wide range of client hardware helping to reduce the costs of application and driver compatability testing and allow older applications to run in this suitable environment. Virtualisation also speeds up desktop roll-out, reducing costs of both the roll-out process and maintaining old desktops for longer.

Whichever methods you decide to use to deliver desktops to users, IT needs to be able to provide a responsive and modern desktop experience for all users and this means it is not always best to focus on the factors of increased productivity and cost cutting but enhancing the reputation of the IT service teams through virtualisation which will do all of these things.

Port-P offer desktop virtualisation and can help you with desktop rollouts call us today to speak to a specialist 0121 693 9666.

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