Not long ago, CIOs looking to purchase technology for their employees had a much easier choice to make. They simply evaluated the desktop offerings available at the time, compared price and performance, and made a decision. Today, CIOs face increasingly difficult choices.
Now, a CIO must first determine if PCs are even the right choice for employees. Declining PC sales have been dominating the news lately. The most recent results from Gartner show PC shipments fell 9.5% from the second quarter of 2014 to the second quarter of this year — that’s the largest PC shipment decline since the third quarter of 2013. Does that mean fewer businesses are investing in PCs?
There has been a lot of speculation about why PC sales are dropping. Gartner claims there are three major reasons for the drop in shipments: the ending of Windows XP support (which drove PC buying up a year ago), currency fluctuations that increased PC prices, and consumers waiting for the release of Windows 10. The company predicts the market to go back to "slow and steady growth" in 2016.
But others believe the downturn will last, as more companies turn to more mobile technologies to appease the new generation of tech-savvy workers.
Enabling mobility
In just the last year, tablets have grown increasingly functional, while new productivity apps have simultaneously improved their performance. Another report from Gartner predicts that by 2018, more than half of all users will use a tablet or smartphone instead of a laptop or desktop. But the report doesn’t delve deeply into the needs of the workplace — where creating content or conducting complex tasks often makes desktop PCs with larger displays and more processing power the preferred choice.
Mobility is another factor. According to numbers from the United States Census Bureau, 9.5% of the American workforce now telecommute at least once a week. As more workers telecommute, there may be less need for desktops in the workplace.
Still, others believe the decline in PC sales is not because the need for desktops in the workplace has diminished, but simply because PCs are more durable today — so companies are hanging onto them much longer.
Finding the right fit
Another factor to consider is what’s coming next. There may be yet another technology alternative just around the corner that could trump all of today’s choices.
The bottom line: CIOs have much tougher decisions to make when it comes to investing in technology for workers today. They must not only weigh which technology will enable employees to be most productive; they must also ensure that it has potential to foster team collaboration and promote creativity. And they must do so without compromising data security.
Ultimately, it comes down to finding the best technology for employees' specific needs.
