Companies Seek Alternatives to the Old Desktop PC

IT departments attempt to cut costs by experimenting with thin clients, netbooks, virtual desktops, and other substitutes for traditional computing

By Rachael King

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Tech executive Parikshit Arora had an unconventional response the morning he discovered that his office computer was no longer working. Rather than fixing it himself or calling in help from the information technology department, he discarded the device. "It wasn't booting up," says Arora, vice-president for technology at iQor, a company that handles call-center work for clients. "I didn't even care to find out why. I threw it away and got another one."

The same goes for most of iQor's 11,000 employees. Why the seemingly cavalier take on computers? Two years ago, New York-based iQor ditched most of its Dell (DELL) and Hewlett-Packard (HPQ) desktop computers and installed a fleet of cheaper, stripped-down machines that lacked hard drives. Also made by HP and known as thin clients, these smaller, virtually disposable devices leave most processing and storage tasks to a centrally located server. "We refer to thin clients as lollipops," says iQor Chief Executive Vikas Kapoor. "If yours isn't working, just get another one." Now, about 75% of iQor's employees use thin clients with files and software stored elsewhere. When a machine dies, staffers get a new one and resume work in minutes.

iQor may be a harbinger of things to come in corporate computing. While traditional laptops and desktops reign supreme in the workplace, accounting for the vast majority of employee computers, companies are increasingly willing to consider alternatives. Some are experimenting with thin clients in a bid to cut costs while many others are betting on netbooks. Employees are spending more work time on smartphones, while Apple's Mac—once viewed as a machine for artists and educators—is wending its way into corporations. "We've got the most diverse offerings of PCs that we've ever had," says Richard Shim, research manager for IDC's personal computing program, which is now tracking some 20 different kinds of personal computers, up from 16 in 2008.

No single kind of machine has gained wide workplace acceptance. Yet in aggregate, the alternatives reflect a shift in the way corporations think about computing. For instance, the Mac operating system was installed in about 2.7% of corporate computers in July 2008 but the figure had increased to 3.6% by March 2009, according to Forrester Research (FORR). As of October 2009, about 9% of 1,414 business technology professionals surveyed by InformationWeek Analytics said that their organizations made extensive use of netbooks and 19% predicted they would make extensive use of them by 2011. About 33 million netbooks were shipped worldwide in 2009.

Eliminating the Help Desk

The worldwide thin client market may grow to 7 million units in 2012, from 2.9 million in 2007, according to IDC. Gartner (IT) expects that by 2014, 15% of traditional professional desktop PCs will be replaced by so-called virtual desktops, which also leave most computing and storage tasks to a centrally located computer, rather than maintain them at the employee's workstation.

Executives at iQor opted for a nontraditional computing environment in large part to save money. "For every dollar I spent buying a PC, I spent 50¢ to the dollar every year maintaining it," Kapoor says. "There's a lot of technical expertise that's required to do that maintenance." iQor has eliminated its help desk and, before long, expects to cut its IT staff to about a quarter its previous size.

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