Dell Gets Ready for the Next PC Revolution: Consumerization

"Rumors of the death of PC has been largely exaggerated," declared Ricardo J. Echevarria, general manager of Intel's Business Client Platform Division. "The PC will continue to be at the center of business computing, because of its ability to adapt."

It's no secret that PCs, desktops and laptops in particular, have been facing mounting pressure from their smaller, nimbler competitions: hand-held tablets and smart phones, a market currently dominated by Apple's i-devices. PC maker Dell has been sizing up the competition. It singled out five top trends reshaping the future of business computing:

• The rise of social media as a business application;
• The blurring of work and home;
• The emergence of new mobile devices;
• Shifting business models that require tech-savvy employees; and
• Changing employee expectations of corporate IT.

"How data is stored, how computing is done is changing," noted Steve Lalla, Dell's VP and general manager, Business Client Product Group. The five trends listed above attest to our desire "to be able to do what we do in our personal life in our professional life," as Lalla put it. More succinctly, Dell calls it "Consumerization."

If this is true, Dell's Business Client Product Group has but one way to respond to it -- offer consumer-friendly features in professional machines. To do otherwise -- to resist the evolutionary demand to adapt -- would be to precipitate the demise of business PCs.

PCs Without Borders

Thinking about outlawing your employees' iPods, iPhones, and iPads in the name of security? You may end up doing more harm than good. "Corporate IT policies that ban the use of employee-owned devices in the name of security inadvertently create new bigger security holes as users skirt IT restrictions," Dell pointed out ("