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January 2, 2009
• Vol.31 Issue 1
Page(s) 20 in print issue
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Notebooks Take The Lead
How Does This Challenge Your SME?
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IT’S OFFICIAL: Notebooks are outselling desktops. IDC reported that, for the first time in the U.S., notebook PCs outsold desktop PCs for all Q3 2008. We knew this shift was coming, but what does it mean for IT? What are the new challenges facing IT managers, and how will they change their approach to PC management?
 PC Management
Bill Margeson, co-founder, president, and CEO of CBL Data Recovery Technologies (www.cbltech.com), says the notebook is becoming the computing platform of choice vs. the larger PC workstation. He says, “The notebook affords individuals mobility, but not without risks to both the hardware and the corporate data stored on it. Notebooks are more prone to being bumped, jarred, and dropped, thus increasing the risk of physical damage and subsequent data loss.”
Margeson says IT may not have to change its approach to PC management, but simply extend it to encompass notebooks and other devices. He adds, “As enterprises face today’s economic challenges, some may be transitioning to flexible office environments. While employers may reduce the total work space to house employees to improve their bottom line, employees who work remotely from the convenience of their homes or client sites do present challenges to the staff who must manage remote IT assets, which include notebooks and PDAs, but more importantly, the data which resides on them.”
Lee Highsmith, program manager for Lenovo (ThinkVantage Technologies; www.lenovo.com/us) says mobility, increased pressures for cost-efficiency, and reduced resources have driven companies to reassess their support model for PCs. He says, “Many organizations now rely on embedded tools and automation to enable users to be more self-reliant in managing their laptops. When considering how to support mobile users, the tools implemented must be manageable and customizable to achieve true cost reductions and improved user reliability.”
According to Dan McCall, president and CEO of Virtual Computer (www.virtualcomputer.com), IT managers at small to midsized enterprises have the same problems as larger enterprises with notebooks: They break, get lost, and get stolen. He adds, “Notebooks are more difficult to patch, and they have relatively poor backup capabilities. The difference between midsized enterprises and larger enterprises is the level of investment they can make in solving these problems.”
McCall says SMEs will look for turnkey solutions that can solve three major challenges of notebook computing: provisioning and patching, security of the device and user-data, and backup of user data (including recovering from a lost or stolen device).
Carol Johnston, senior product manager at Absolute Software (www.absolute.com), says the PC management challenges faced by IT managers are, to a large degree, the same as those faced by those in larger corporations; they just need to be addressed with less access to resources, human, and capital.
Management Issues
Highsmith says while laptops give increased mobility and help maximize user productivity, they also give IT administrators more to manage than desktops. He explains, “Administrators must consider the traditional issues associated with deployment and support, but they must also consider the costs and risks associated with loss or theft of the laptop. Mobile users must have greater access to tools to make tasks like connectivity and recovery simple and available 24/7.” Recently, Lenovo announced plans to bring Remote Disable to users (Q1 2009). This capability allows users to text an SMS message via their cell phones to their mobile broadband-enabled ThinkPad laptop to lock down the PC if it’s lost or stolen.
In McCall’s opinion, many of the age-old PC management challenges become magnified with notebooks. He comments, “Applying patches and updates is a more daunting proposition since notebooks are generally not persistently connected to the corporate network where they can be serviced off-hours. Patching can take longer and becomes a disruption to the end user, especially when patches fail. There often isn’t an ability to do a deskside visit, and when patches go wrong, little can be done today to remotely roll back to a working system state.”
McCall says notebooks are also subjected to more wear and tear than PCs, resulting in a more frequent need to troubleshoot, rebuild, and replace systems. “This can be a time-consuming exercise for IT teams,” he says, “and often they are only able to recover a user back to a standard starting point where all user personalization has been lost. Also, because notebook users may have legitimate need to add special software to accommodate home office or hotel peripherals and applications, IT is faced with nonstandard system configuration.”
According to Margeson, mobile computing devices can present daunting challenges to IT managers as they are tasked with the administration of their enterprise’s IT assets. “The shift to notebooks isn’t new,” he says. “However, the popularity of notebooks predicates the need for their encryption, along with other security strategies and compliance issues for corporate data shared on PCs, servers, smart devices, and notebooks.”
Margeson says given that notebooks are more prone to physical damage, data loss is a reality. He says the need for users to back up their notebooks is critical. “Whether the data is backed up to USB drives, DVDs, or external hard drives, enterprises must address the security risks they pose.”  by Chris A. MacKinnon
Prepare For The Notebook Shift
Carol Johnston, senior product manager at Absolute Software (www.absolute.com), offers the following as the main IT management issues related to notebooks and what IT management should do to prepare for the shift to a notebook-based enterprise.
• Increase recovery of leased PCs (90% of which are notebooks)
• Increase pressure on compliance
• Identify and deliver mobile upgrades
• Minimize risk of loss and allow recovery
• Determine what was on the missing system
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