Are Businesses Ready For Radical Desktops?Are Businesses Ready For Radical Desktops?

For a long time, IT's options for how to outfit a new employee had all the thrill of the "paper or plastic?" choice. For IT, it was a "laptop or desktop?" world. Get ready for a change.

Chris Murphy, Editor, information

September 8, 2008

1 Min Read
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For a long time, IT's options for how to outfit a new employee had all the thrill of the "paper or plastic?" choice. For IT, it was a "laptop or desktop?" world. Get ready for a change.It will change dramatically and do so in just a couple years, predicts Joe Hernick in his "Radical Desktops" article. Microsoft Windows will remain the business environment of choice for many years to come, he says. What gets tossed out is the largely cookie-cutter approach we've had to how employees get everything that goes into that Windows experience. Hernick writes:

... the only thing certain about the desktop of the future is that no single, dominant computing approach will emerge over the next few years. Much as the data center is being transformed under the influence of virtualization and externally hosted offerings, the idea of a 'standard' corporate computing platform will vary based on organizational, departmental, and user requirements.

In addition to desktop virtualization, there's expanding wireless connectivity, more powerful smartphones, increasingly powerful Web applications, and more all coming together to thrust new desktop options on companies.

Not every company will embrace a new approach to employees' desktops. But with this coming surge of choices, every IT team needs to spend time considering it. Is there a better way? Perhaps not, in any given situation. But increasingly, it won't be for a lack of choices.

What do you think lies ahead in businesses -- radical desktops, or more of the same? Please share your ideas.

Download a PDF of the entire issue of information magazine here, including the Radical Desktop article's "Power To The People" cover imagery. (Free registration required)

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About the Author

Chris Murphy

Editor, information

Chris Murphy is editor of information and co-chair of the information Conference. He has been covering technology leadership and CIO strategy issues for information since 1999. Before that, he was editor of the Budapest Business Journal, a business newspaper in Hungary; and a daily newspaper reporter in Michigan, where he covered everything from crime to the car industry. Murphy studied economics and journalism at Michigan State University, has an M.B.A. from the University of Virginia, and has passed the Chartered Financial Analyst (CFA) exams.

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