Desktop PCs were once a popular choice for organisations but have become a massive drain on IT resources. According to Nadia Jacobs, Sales Specialist at Cloudware, an IT department’s primary function is to deliver applications to end-users. Therefore, everything else, such as security, uptime, backups, support and maintenance, is important but secondary to the primary function. Jacobs suggests that a new model exists to reduce the complexity and costs associated with desktop PCs.
CloudGate is a hand-sized device that replaces the traditional desktop PC and can be obtained for a fraction of the cost. The device operates by unplugging the screen, mouse, and keyboard from the old PC and plugging it into the CloudGate device. Users can then securely access the entire corporate Windows environment and an Android desktop. The core innovation that makes this possible is Cloudware, a South African-developed application delivery solution that manages all of a company’s applications and data from the data centre. With Cloudware, the only thing that leaves that secure environment is a set of instructions for what to display on the screen.
CloudGate users have a single Cloudware icon on their Android desktop that gives them access to all their company applications, files, and data, making it completely secure. According to Jacobs, information from the central server cannot be shared with the device, not even by copying and pasting. However, this option can be turned on if necessary, but the default setting is that the two environments are entirely separate.
CloudGate eliminates the need for desktop-level support and maintenance, and any issues can be resolved by resetting everything to the factory defaults and erasing the device, as there is no company data on it.
Jacobs explains that CloudGate is an effective solution as the desktop PC is outdated and makes no economic or management sense to put all that processing power and storage into a standalone machine that will never run at more than a fraction of its capacity. The primary physical reason for not moving everything to the data centre has been slow network connections, but Cloudware solves that problem. Within a few years, the desktop PC as we know it will seem outdated, and organisations will continue to shift towards more efficient, cost-effective solutions like CloudGate.
Recent Comments