Some employees will have several terminals

What will tomorrow look our computer at work There are certainly several faces. "Some major accounts have long believed that it could offer a unique 10,000 employees workstation." "The probability that 10,000 people have the same needs, is zero," explains Louis Naugès, Chairman of the Board Microcost society, ensuring that Desktops will be inevitably replaced by a multitude of terminals that will be as "objects of access" to information system.

For analysts, first certainty is that there will be more in addition to laptops in the enterprise. "In 2008, we should sell as much of portable and stationary PC-to-business, a report, roughly, two-thirds of desktop PC and one-third of laptops today", said Franck Brassart, marketing manager for personal systems (PC and PDA) in HP France. According to him, companies want to promote working from home by providing their employees of PC laptops and take advantage of the renewal of their fleet to do so.

Another strong trend, there are also more thin clients, these computers without a hard drive that communicate continuously with the company's servers. According to analysts, the thin client represents today only 4 to 5 of the workstations, 95 of PC. This share is expected to increase. "For the sedentary users accessing one or two application keys, it is the most advantageous solution which ensures the highest level of security and offers the ease of administration," explains Franck Brassart.

The development of the thin client

But thin clients sales climb two times faster than those of desktop PCs. They "are progressing by 25 per year and thin clients should represent 10 of the desktops in 2008", note Franck Brassard. "Hardware, network, applications, the entire value chain is ready for the thin client finally launches", confirms Laurent Charreyron, at Wyse Technology. According to him, within five years, thin clients represent 15 to 20 of the workstations, Notebooks 30-40 and 40 only Desktops.

The adoption of thin clients could be accelerated by the development of Internet applications. With a simple Internet browser, a thin client is then sufficient access to enterprise applications. For Loïc de Kergommeaux, CTO of the French society of SCC services subsidiary, will however always need power of significant local computing and local hard drives, not what would be to work in mode offline (off-line) in a mobility situation.

The screen steals the show

"The company will have to completely rethink its fleet needs." Some employees will have several terminals. "And should include PDAs and"smartphones"in the concept of job," adds Louis Naugès. "Mobile computing progresses." Today, communicating PDAs represent 2 of the computer business. "In 2006, they should weigh 6 of spending," confirms Franck Brassart. For businesses, the main challenge will be to provide employees a unique working environment, regardless of the terminal. With the rich Internet client model, the employee may access it as it will be connected to the corporate network. Another solution will be to save the virtual desktop on a USB key.

In all cases, the ease of use, ergonomics, depend then used Terminal. Inside the company, the key point will certainly be used screen size. On the desktop, whether PC or thin client, the screen stole the spotlight at the computer itself. "The social status of employees is more tied to their screens." "A beautiful flat screen, wireless keyboard and optical mouse reflect the status of the employee more than the power of the PC which anime", explains Laurent Charreyron.

Conversely, in a situation of mobility, the design of the terminal remains fundamental. The main limitation of mobile devices is their small size (and therefore the small size of their screen). Manufacturers have the opportunity to differentiate by their ability to offer ergonomic terminals. Laptops, Tablet PC, PDA, etc., each category has its strengths and its limitations (see chart). The proliferation of concepts shows that users have very different expectations. The universal terminal is decidedly not for tomorrow.