VDI and DaaS are primed to displace traditional desktops, as the benefits of hosted desktops for both IT and the business come into focus. Over the next 12 to 24 months, organizations plan to decrease their use of traditional desktops, while use of VDI and DaaS, by contrast, shows no signs of decreasing, suggesting that hosted desktops are becoming the approach of choice for IT decision makers.
Business Applications & End-user Computing
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In the wake of COVID-19 lockdowns, virtually all organizations made significant improvements to their end-user computing (EUC) environments, primarily by investing in existing solutions or by supplementing their historical solutions with new products. Now is not the time to let up. While the top EUC challenges businesses face today are the same ones they grappled with pre-pandemic (e.g., supporting remote and hybrid work, security, and identity access management), workplace locations and policies have changed. IT decision makers must rise to the challenge of a fluid and evolving workplace and implement EUC technologies that shape the future of work.
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EUC Strategies Driven by Operational Efficiency Despite IT’s Continued Reliance on Legacy Technology
Most end-user computing strategies are carried out amid a complex mix of legacy systems and newer technologies. Organizations must balance their top priority (security) with the challenges IT faces in managing security for the growing array of endpoint devices preferred by employees. Cloud consumption models and newer security approaches hold promise for simplifying those responsibilities, cutting costs, and improving flexibility and service.
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The quality and flexibility of endpoint hardware is now seen as the critical driver of unified communications and collaboration strategies. While networking requirements also play a major role, no factor influences the UCC employee and customer experience more than hardware. Organizations should keep end-user computing environments and endpoint hardware in the forefront of their UCC planning while seeking cost and labor savings from cloud delivery models.
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Endpoint devices, with their growing capabilities and variety, are increasingly driving end-user computing strategies and have now overtaken operating systems and applications as the determining factor in EUC delivery models. While traditional desktop and laptop systems remain important, IT departments are investigating the viability of smartphones to serve as a single device for users, perhaps backed by cloud-based virtual desktop infrastructure. The potential support, security, and cost advantages from consolidating multiple end-user devices on one platform are significant. However, this isn’t the first time device consolidation has come up. Today’s device management and security strategies have evolved, as have the demands on digital workspaces, but is the landscape different enough to give it another shot?
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To support the rise in remote work triggered by COVID-19 work-from-home mandates, most IT organizations (91%) maintain multiple meeting and collaboration platforms. Employee response to the number and variety of the unified communications and collaboration (UCC) platforms provided has been exceptionally positive, with 90% of survey respondents highly satisfied with their meeting and collaboration software. The challenge for EUC professionals is maintaining momentum. Employee experience vis-à-vis UCC technology has become a top EUC priority for businesses, second only to improving IT efficiency and on par with managing security risks. With hybrid work likely to remain the norm, even as employees return to offices, continued investment in UCC solutions will be needed to preserve the current high levels of employee satisfaction.
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The path a career can take is often based on moments – a company going out of business, chance encounters, seismic shifts in a given industry, enormous external pressures. My career is no exception. After many years as a consultant or in-house systems engineer, I joined BrianMadden.com where I became an independent blogger, analyst, and speaker focused on end-user computing. TechTarget acquired BrianMadden.com in 2007, and I spent that time covering the EUC space as it expanded from a handful of desktop virtualization vendors to hundreds of companies covering everything from virtual desktops to mobile devices to cloud services, along with all the adjacent technologies that support those pillars. In that role, I saw a lot. I was a participant in a unique community of passionate EUC practitioners. I helped companies introduce products to the market. I watched as companies thrived or failed based on their decisions and, sometimes, luck. Mostly, though, I attempted to explain the complex concepts and products that comprise EUC to our readers in a way that I would’ve liked the vendors to communicate it–-distilling the message to its essence and explaining what really matters.
In 2018, I decided that I’d like to try focusing on one thing as opposed to the entire industry, so I left TechTarget to join FSLogix – a company that solved the problems related to app management, roaming profiles, folder redirection, and Office 365 caches. The small company, all-hands-on-deck feeling was amazing, but FSLogix was almost immediately acquired by Microsoft, where I found myself for another year working on what would become the Azure Virtual Desktop team. I then moved on to VMware, where I focused on the intersection of Horizon and Microsoft Azure as a Product Marketing Manager.
Though each of those was a great experience, I found myself missing the communication with the end-users from a broad perspective. I was creating the company-guided message, not distilling it. I was locked into knowing how a single ecosystem worked, as opposed to looking at the big picture and how it all fits together. And then there was the competition with other vendors. Most importantly, I wasn’t communicating with the end customers in the way that I liked to the most – as an independent, trusted voice.
Why Enterprise Strategy Group?
I had all these thoughts in my mind when I had my first call with ESG about taking this position. Throughout my career, I never thought I’d be an Analyst with a capital “A.” Not that I dislike analysts – I’ve enjoyed working with many – it’s just that after having many conversations with them over the years, it didn’t seem like the job for me.
The philosophy here at ESG changed all of that.
My experience in product marketing has shown that even the most amazing marketing groups need help in the form of content creation, independent validation, and storytelling. At ESG, we’re dedicated to helping customers spread their story with whatever they need, be it a simple white paper or a comprehensive, research-backed study. We do technical and economic validation, and we have experts across all of IT that are constantly performing research that’s available to our subscribers.
Equally important, I think, is what we don’t do. Though there’s a place for comparisons like quadrants, radars, and waves, we think we can better serve our customers when we take rankings off the table. This allows us to have conversations with customers about their actual pain points and allows us to tailor solutions to those needs without the customer having to worry about how any given conversation will affect their ranking.
Most importantly for me, though, is our audience. The vast majority of the work we do is targeted for consumption by our customer’s customer, like IT management or practitioners, This is the audience I always have in mind when I write or speak. It’s who I love talking to the most, and, ultimately, who I want to help. In this new role, I’ll have lots of ways to reach that audience, from research to webinars. Plus, I’ll be able to blog with my thoughts and opinions about what’s going on in the industry from an independent perspective.
Oh–and TechTarget!
I didn’t really need anything beyond ESG’s approach to make me want to make the move, but I was happy to learn that TechTarget acquired ESG in 2020 in a move that I think will be amazing for both companies. Combining ESG’s research-backed content creation expertise with the content syndication and marketing capabilities of TechTarget and BrightTALK (also acquired in 2020), we have so many ways to help IT vendors share their stories.
Plus, being back at TechTarget again lets me work with some of the amazing people that I worked with four years ago. Even though the company has grown, the culture has remained the same.
Put all of this together, helping vendors tell their stories, helping customers understand complex topics, and working with a great team with an awesome culture, and I’ve found what I think is going to be a great chapter in my career as an “EUC Lifer.” I’m looking forward to reaching out to old connections and to making new ones. If you ever want to get in touch with me, you can find me @GabeKnuth on Twitter and LinkedIn, or at [email protected].
See you around!
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End-users are increasingly relying on web browsers as their primary access to corporate applications and data. The most commonly used web browsers are Google Chrome, Mozilla Firefox, Microsoft Edge, and Apple Safari. Due to advances in technology, security, and internet speeds, browsers can provide several advantages in a corporate environment compared to PC and mobile operating systems. Yet browser security remains a major issue among IT professionals charged with managing security patches, updates, and policies as part of an overall end-user computing (EUC) strategy. As businesses accelerate the adoption of applications accessed through web browsers, and IT continues to improve support and security for multiple browsers, enterprises may one day treat browsers as the de facto operating system in a corporate environment.
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The significant performance and bandwidth advantages of 5G cellular networks have numerous implications for businesses as well as consumers. 5G has the potential to deliver reliable connections for hybrid work and collaboration strategies while enabling augmented reality and other multimedia applications to run on a wider range of endpoints and locations. To realize these opportunities, IT leaders should consider 5G integral to their network infrastructure plans and strategies.
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Environmental sustainability, already a priority of executives in many organizations, has infiltrated IT purchasing to such a degree that it has become the most important buying consideration for endpoint devices. In response, IT leaders are learning to become sustainability advocates, which in turn is driving changes in how vendors position and prioritize features of their devices.
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Communication platforms are where work gets done. The immense collaboration surge has inspired companies to centralize workflows, efficiently manage projects, and interact with colleagues in real time as they integrate their favorite applications, build custom applications, and consolidate business processes.
Stephanie Corby, VP of Market Insights at TechTarget, joins me in this brief video as we discuss the current market dynamics and our research plans.
Enterprise Strategy Group UCaaS research will help:
- Determine the extent to which organizations are prioritizing investment in a UCaaS solution to help consolidate communication channels and aggregate collaboration applications.
- Understand the common tipping point for stakeholders to consolidate the multiple existing communication and collaboration platforms into a UCaaS solution.
- Gain insights into what matters most for IT operations, LoB executives, and end-users, as well as what may be slowing down UCaaS investment.
- Gauge buyer preferences for the capabilities, economics, and business value of a UCaaS solution.
- Examine the impact of not investing in UCaaS solutions and the downstream impact it could have on business platforms and communication channels within the organization.
Please contact us to learn more.
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ESG conducted a comprehensive online survey of IT professionals from private- and public-sector organizations in North America (United States and Canada) between November 29, 2021 and December 2, 2021. To qualify for this survey, respondents were required to be IT professionals responsible for evaluating, purchasing, and managing end-user computing environments.
This Complete Survey Results presentation focuses on end-user computing (EUC) environments, including EUC delivery models, endpoint device usage trends, and how unified communication and collaboration (UCC) platforms are being integrated into digital workspace strategies.
The path a career can take is often based on moments – a company going out of business, chance encounters, seismic shifts in a given industry, enormous external pressures. My career is no exception. After many years as a consultant or in-house systems engineer, I joined BrianMadden.com where I became an independent blogger, analyst, and speaker focused on end-user computing. TechTarget acquired BrianMadden.com in 2007, and I spent that time covering the EUC space as it expanded from a handful of desktop virtualization vendors to hundreds of companies covering everything from virtual desktops to mobile devices to cloud services, along with all the adjacent technologies that support those pillars.