No More Laptops: End Of Road For Enterprise Notebooks?No More Laptops: End Of Road For Enterprise Notebooks?

Here's a radical -- but eminently business-sensible -- idea for enterprises wondering why they've got to eat thousands of dollars each year per employee for PC support costs: No more laptops. Hey, if cloud and SaaS mean anything, it should be big savings by bagging the self-hosted software paradigm. How about you give your workers $500 each to buy a netbook instead, and they can support themselves? Workers tethered to an office can use a thin client, or -- perish the thought -- a desktop computer.I got onto this idea after I wrote the post Enterprises Iffy On Windows 7, which reported the early results of an information Analytics survey. We found that many businesses were reluctant to upgrade from XP because of migration costs.

Thinking about it, I came to the conclusion that we've all been assessing the operating system upgrade question like a disoriented pilot trying to fly his way out of the Bermuda Triangle. We're going 'round in the same old circles. The question should not be about what we should upgrade to, or whether we should upgrade. (Please note that I'm talking client-side.)

I take my own user experience as illustrative. A few years ago, I would cart my laptop home from work so I could log in to the VPN and get my email. Now, I never do that. I use Webmail from my home desktop. If I had Gmail, I wouldn't even have to concern myself with syching my laptop up several times a week.

[Incidentally, Windows 7 is recognizing, either deliberately or by happenstance, that forcing people to log into the corporate VPN is passe. The OS's new DirectAccess feature automatically puts you on the corporate network. ]

I can't really think of one self-hosted app I couldn't live without, apart from iTunes. For most folks, email, Web browsing, and word processing are the most important apps, and all can be done either on the Web or on a platform that's lighter weight (both physically and computational) than a standard, brick-like notebook. If you're in marketing or sales, you probably use a SaaS app like Salesforce.com. You don't need a laptop per se to access that, either.

Mostly, my objection to laptops comes because I hate lugging them when I travel. That's why I've sensed a trend toward the smartphone becoming a laptop replacement. (See my October, 2007 information cover story, Is The Smartphone Your Next Computer?.) However, realistically, smartphones don't quite cut it yet.

Hence my proposal for companies to ditch laptops for all but those folks who have a need for a key self-hosted apps. (For example, financial analysts who use Excel would want to keep their notebooks.) Give your people a budget, renewable every two years, to go out and buy their own netbooks. Or roll them out via the telecom department, as if they were Blackberrys.

Then set up a bunch of Citrix terminals or desktops in drop-in cubies at headquarters and in branch offices, and let your people take them, first-come, first-serve. (I see that I forgot to note that the death of old-fashioned walled offices is a big enabler of my proposal.)

And, while we're at it, is it time to move more apps -- like word processing and email -- to the Web?

So if you're a CIO, would the support and licensing-cost savings be worth the backlash? Or would workforces perhaps embrace this and become advocates for a new, lower-cost IT strategy?

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Alex Wolfe is editor-in-chief of information.com.