Gateway 2000

Your old desktop

Watching stats from our various client and company websites over the lockdown period, and as reflected in some press today, the use of Laptops has risen dramatically during the day. So we see a much bigger share of browsing to the sites from these devices, and a drop off in mobile devices.

In addition, the amount of older operating systems and obsolete browsers has dropped off significantly too, as a consequence of people working from home.

Having corporate workers working from home, without corporate equipment, has definitely made this happen. If you are sat at home, with a laptop that actually works, vs your desktop in the office that is running a 10 year old browser and an office suite that has been obsolete for longer than that, then using your laptop is a joy.

The larger organisations have struggled to update their office environments, approve newer browsers, provide Internet access that has any capacity, and this leads to people in offices using their mobiles and tablets, rather than their desktop.

Now the client is sat in their living room, with a broadband network connection, and a laptop running current technology, they are finding that they can work on the one device, rather than just reading their Email on the corporate Desktop, and doing Internet things, on their mobile / tablets.

Having worked in several major Banks as an IT consultant in recent years, I have experienced this technology blend, and in talking to several bank based people who also working from home, they are now finding far more capabilities in their personal environment than their office environment.

The last time I recall this happening was the home PC revolution, a while ago now, where our PC users had far better equipment on their Gateway PC (remember those….) than on the desktop we provided to them in the office.

This forced MS-DOS to Windows, a move to Office Excel, from Lotus 123 and increases in their office devices to match their home devices capabilities better.

If we re-open offices, even on a part time basis, how many people want to go back to using that old desktop in their office now ? This lockdown could result in a significant step forward in office technology with the use of laptops, docking stations, decent office Internet, full use of cloud Office and Email suites and being able to use current chat and video technology.

Working from home in this lockdown could not only increase the use of home working on a more permanent basis but also spring forward a massive shift in the base technology that can be used in the physical office. No one will be in a rush to go back to using the old tools they have on their desk today, so IT departments will need to plan for this.

And security departments will need to approve the things people have been using successfully for months, which have the significant advantage of having proper patches for all the security flaws in their old builds.

I will add that worldflow were fully working from home, and fully cloud based prior to all this We use an office infrequently, and do not have any kit in that office, we all use Laptops. All of our file systems, email services, office tools, communications tools are cloud based. All our company and client solutions are cloud based services. So I may have a slightly biased view here. We will see as lockdown is eased.

Any questions or comments welcome. Try to be polite, although can understand if during this time the frustration creeps in and you can’t.