SCCyberworld

Monday, August 12, 2013

IDC & Gartner Reports Portable PCs Vs Desktop Trend A Leap towards Workplace Mobility

August 6, 2013, Kuala Lumpur –  As the use of tablets overtake the PC as a workplace IT device of choice, enterprises need to ensure that workplace apps and software are well-suited for this alternative work platform.

In doing so, employees can enjoy the flexibility of working from their home or any other location, which can help to increase productivity and reduce employee turnover.

Mark Micallef, Area Vice President of Citrix ASEAN.

According to Gartner, PC shipments in Asia Pacific for the second quarter of 2013 stood at 26.8 million units, an 11.5 percent decline from the 30.3 million units seen in the first quarter of 2012.

This drop was larger than the global PC shipments decline of 10.9 percent, which has seen five consecutive quarters of decline. In its assessment, Gartner stated that it is the longest duration of decline in the history of the PC market.

In contrast, shipment of portable PCs in Asia Pacific is expected to rise from 110.4 million units at the end of 2013 to 127.5 million units in 2017, according to the International Data Corporation (IDC).

The findings from both reports suggest an evolving trend of end-users switching from desktops to portable PCs and smaller, mobile devices, which also reflects the rise of the mobile worker.

The number of mobile workers globally is expected to peak at 1.3 billion by 2015, with Asia Pacific witnessing the strongest economic growth. In Asia Pacific excluding Japan, the growth of mobile workers are expected to reach 838.7 million by 2015, which makes up the largest segment of global mobile workers, at 64.5 percent.

As the workplace and workstyles evolve, how can enterprises ensure that apps and software are well-suited to alternative work platforms?

Mark Micallef, Area Vice President of Citrix ASEAN, shares the top three ways in which enterprises can take a leap forward in deploying desktop mobility, and raise the overall productivity of their operations.

1) Enable intuitive and transparent functions
When a Windows app is enabled to function on a mobile device, employees do not have to modify their workstyles when switching from the PC to the tablet. This shortens their time-to-production during the shift to alternative work platforms.

2) Deliver a high-performance user-experience
As Windows is the most widely used software in the workplace, enterprises should implement solutions that replicate the Windows experience on tablets. These apps should be high performance so employees can access these apps, without compromising on the end-user familiarity with the software.

3) Mobilize apps and deliver as a cloud service
Cloud gives enterprises the ability to manage costs, extend capacity on demand, reduce lead-time for procuring and configuring hardware, and reduces hardware sizing risk that comes with fluctuating loads. With cloud, employees can also retrieve their desktops from any device, further empowering their mobility.

Desktop mobility is expected to grow as enterprises adopt it for business functions that do not necessarily require heavy computing. The impetus for mobilized desktops will also stem from employees as their experience of using cloud-hosted desktops mirrors their familiarity with accessing Windows apps and data from their PCs. Therefore, it is essential to extend the functionality and drive adoption of Windows apps on portable devices.

The large scale adoption of such a trend also represents a new world where the workspace is available anywhere, anytime, and not subject to hardware failure or loss.

Supporting this trend, the net revenue for Citrix Mobile and Desktop groups rose by 10.8 percent in Q2 FY2013, when compared to the same quarter last year – from US$345.1 million in 2012 to US$382.2 million in the second quarter of 2013.

The Citrix Q2 FY2013 results released on 24 July also showed that net revenue in Asia Pacific rose 12.6 percent from US$64.5 million in the first quarter of 2013 to US$72.6 million in the second quarter of 2013, outpacing the overall quarter-on-quarter increase of 8.5 percent.

Overall, for the second quarter of fiscal year 2013, Citrix achieved revenues of US$730 million, compared to US$615 million in the second quarter of fiscal year 2012, representing a 19 percent revenue growth.

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