The proliferation of device-as-a-service (DaaS) recently has paved the way for the mainstream enterprise adoption of bring your own device (BYOD), according to Brian Gatke, Insight’s Director of Product Management and Customer Success.
DaaS offers customers a device – PC, laptop, etc – usually bundled with software and services on a subscription basis for a monthly fee. In recent years it has been a hot topic in the channel, but adoption from enterprise customers was slow. Much like other areas of IT, the pandemic has accelerated DaaS adoption, but there are other factors now driving that trend, said Gatke (pictured above).
“We have seen a huge uptake in DaaS; it was a combination of the COVID impact and people wanting to get out of managing endpoints,” he told UC Today.
“Like many things in IT, DaaS was premature – it got a lot of excitement, but it was viewed as a lease, and it had a rough start for years. But now we’re selling a lot more of it, we’re partnering with our OEMs to provide device, maintenance, Lifecycle Services, SaaS software licencing, and just bundle it all together and subscribe it.”
Customers now see the financial benefits of the DaaS model, which in turn is leading to many conversations around BYOD, although it may take up to three years before the BYOD model sees mainstream acceptance because of employee hesitancy, Gatke added.
“I really believe BYOD is finally going to become prominent with DaaS, at that point you are changing the game,” he elaborated.
“It furthers the MSP; the fact that clients will be more open and dependent on providers will cement the personal computing style enterprise is trying to achieve. The user is joining on their personal device or a corporate provided device and they’re now able to seamlessly go through their environment of work and personal apps, and productivity platforms”
The BYOD hesitancy is “heavily influenced” by employee choice at the moment and the line between personal and professional devices is becoming blurred, he added.
“The misconception is that companies are jumping on it because it’s less expensive – which it is,” Gatke stated.
“But if I take myself as an example, my corporate provided PC is sitting on my desk over there and I’ve not turned it on in two years. I use my personal PC because the nature of my personal computing and my business computing are enmeshed. And this is happening with a lot of people I speak with.
“So it’s the employee choice that’s influencing this, but the corporations that are adopting it say ‘We finally have reached a cloud position we are comfortable in, with the security we feel comfortable with, and the capability is here, so let’s do it.”
Desktop-as-a-service, also known as PC-as-a-service, is also seeing a revolution, especially with the announcement that Microsoft is moving Windows to the cloud. This will further popularise BYOD as it enables contractors and short-term contract workers to access what they need using just their browser.
“Way more users than we think are eligible for this virtualised desktop in the cloud,” he said.
“Now the savvier clients are saying ‘Our users don’t need a lot of resources now because of remote work, half my resources are existing on their own computer through a browser, so I’m just going to give them this cloud PC model that is Windows 365’. They want this because it’s cheaper, the provider manages the environment so they don’t have to pay on consumption, and they don’t have to administrate and manage all this virtualised architecture.
“Companies are very quick to see that their users don’t need a lot of resources or a lot of infrastructure to function.”
from UC Today https://ift.tt/3ET75Lr
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