The Endpoint Imperative: A Form Factor Renaissance

Workplace expectations are changing, and along with them, the devices we use to do our jobs. In this episode of "The End Point Imperative", Intel’s Sarah Wieskus tells us about how Intel is driving better user interface and performance while continuing to driving enhanced security and manageability.

Kevin L. Jackson: Hi everyone and welcome to this episode of The Endpoint Imperative, a podcast series from Intel. My name is Kevin L. Jackson and I'm your host for the series. The topic for this episode is "A Form Factor Renaissance". With me, is Sarah Wieskus the Enterprise Sales Director with Intel. Sarah, welcome.

Sarah Wieskus: Thank you, Kevin.

Kevin: Let's talk today about the changing expectations around technology in the workplace. How is Intel driving the user experience and performance while continuing to drive and enhance security manageability? In the US, in fact, mobile workers are projected to account for more than 70% of their workforce. They're really a digital native, younger and more demanding workforce. Can you tell us about the consumerization of IT?

Sarah: Sure, Kevin. An example of that was several years ago when many consumers received amazing, thin and light, instantly connected, instantly available devices at home. They wanted to bring those into work and use them because their work devices were thicker, not as fast, not as easily connected, et cetera. IT then had to figure out how they take a consumer device and manage it in the enterprise, secure it, connect it, make sure peripherals would work with it and also, make sure the enterprise applications would even run on these consumer-type devices. Now fast forward to today we see what's almost called a consumerization of IT 2.0 where it's not about the device because there's many, many thin, light and instantly on and instantly available devices that are enterprise grade in the workplace. It’s really about the experiences that are happening at home that we want to leverage in the enterprise.

I have three examples. Example number one. Many of us use our thumb to log in to our phones at home or use our face to log in to our computers at home but then we go to work and we have to put in many passwords into many different systems and applications and websites. These passwords can get lost and stolen and forgotten. It’s much much more efficient to use your finger or your face as an example to connect to those devices at work. 

Another example is when we talk about having web meetings at home. Instantly with a push of a button on my phone, on my devices at home, I can connect to my friends and family very easily, see them, talk to them, with pretty good quality, but when I go to work to have a web meeting it's very complex, it's not easy to connect and you sacrifice on quality. Why is that? 

Then finally, many of us, at home are using assistive technology. That’s what we call it. Where it's technology in the room, your kitchen, your living room that you talk to, and you ask the device to help you with turning the lights on and off, advancing the music on your phone and advancing the music on your stereo. This assistive technology, I'll call her a she, will help you at work as well. Why is it when you come to work you don't have that type of experience in the space you're working in? Wouldn't it be great to walk into a conference room for example, and tell her, "Turn the lights on", "Connect to a projector", "Take notes for me"? From a high level, it's all about how do we enable some of those amazing technologies that make us more efficient, more collaborative at home and bring that into work?

Kevin: Yes, I really see myself in each of those examples. Tell me, how has Intel really amp'ed up their innovation to develop these end user devices for work?

Sarah: Well, Kevin, it takes a village. It's not something we can do by ourselves. Intel spends a lot of time working with ecosystem partners to make something like that happen at work. We have to work with the numerous software providers, numerous other technologies to make those kinds of things happen and to make them easy, that is a major key as well.

People don't care about how it works in the back-end, they just want to push a button and it works. They want to work all the time reliably and that's not an easy thing to accomplish when you are talking about a complex environment with different types of software technologies, different types of hardware technologies, different types of infrastructure that you have at work.

Kevin: You've referenced the back-end but for IT team that's their job so what does it really mean for the IT team? They used to be able to dictate the hardware and software that was used.

Sarah: Yes that is true. What we've really focused on is how can we enable those technologies and make it easy for IT. Intel has a platform brand called the vPro For Business. This brand means that all the necessary performance technologies, manageability technologies, security technologies, stability technologies are there. We're working really hard to enable these consumer-like experiences at work on top of that vPro platform brand. That way IT knows that, "Hey, vPro is here so I know this is the most secure, manageable, efficient platform for these experiences to essentially write on top of." We want to make it that easy for them, that they can look at a brand and just know that they can bank on that for business.

Kevin: We can really look to Intel to help them. Unfortunately, we're at the end of our time for this episode but thanks to Sarah with Intel for her insights and expertise.

Sarah: Thank you.

( This content is being syndicated through multiple channels. The opinions expressed are solely those of the author and do not represent the views of GovCloud Network, GovCloud Network Partners or any other corporation or organization.)

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