Industry executives and experts share their predictions for 2022. Read them in this 14th annual VMblog.com series exclusive.
The Cloud Landscape in 2022 - Cloud PCs are the Key to a Sustainable Hybrid Workforce
By Amitabh Sinha, CEO at
Workspot
Since the start of the pandemic, we've seen the widespread
acceleration of digital transformation and cloud adoption and one thing is
evidently clear: business leaders can no longer afford to take slow, measured
approaches to their digital strategies.
With Gartner expecting 85 percent of organizations to become
cloud-first by 2025, next year is set to be a pivotal year for the cloud. The
cloud provides a faster, more cost-effective, and long-term fix in the face of
industry challenges like the ongoing chip shortage, hybrid work environments,
broader supply chain issues, and many others. With the security, maintenance,
and scalability built into cloud-first solutions, organizations can scale as
needed, and find an easy and cost-effective way to deploy when equipping remote
employees and contractors around the world.
Over the last few years, Desktop as a service (DaaS) and
cloud-hosted desktops have gained traction and will continue to do so as we
move through 2022, offering benefits like improved security, better business
agility and great end user experience, providing a path to future-proofing the
enterprise.
The ‘new' Hybrid Work Paradigm
The experience gained over the last two years will give the
employers the push they need to truly advance remote work through the hybrid
work model. The expansion of remote work allowed the workforce to have more
flexibility in locations and working hours, making the rise of the ‘digital
nomad' more pertinent than ever. Organizations should develop long-term
strategies to provide employees secure, high performance access to applications
and data.
Although the physical office workspace will not fully
dissipate, the new norm will continue to include home offices and various
remote job sites. In this context, the traditional data center will evolve to
serve fewer functions. On the other hand, employee productivity will remain a
mission critical component of any company, so IT will have to adapt computing,
security, and collaboration capabilities to meet these employees wherever they
are working.
The Future of the PC is in the Cloud
In 2022, enterprises will begin the process of augmenting
physical devices and on-premises or ‘do it yourself (DIY) cloud VDI with Cloud
PC platforms. With the hybrid workforce becoming the norm, Cloud PCs provide
the improved security, agility, and the necessary support needed for remote
work. Organizations will reap the benefits including reduced costs of
provisioning and retrieving equipment that is provided to consultants,
contractors, or partners in order to access applications or data. Moreover,
Cloud PCs will enhance the delivery of IT sanctioned, secured, equipped with
corporate-mandated apps and data for any device, anywhere.
Small and medium businesses (SMBs) will look for Cloud PC
solutions based on simplicity and cost. On the other hand, larger enterprises
will transition to Cloud PC solutions that support customization and that can
be integrated with the tools and processes already in place such as security,
authentication, SIEM, image management, or ITSM. Other requirements may include
flexible pricing options to support different use cases, from hourly usage for
software developers to annual contracts that support persistent,
GPU-accelerated cloud workstations used by CAD/CAM engineers.
Ultimately, Cloud PC will fuel business models that support
engaging hybrid work that keeps and attracts talent and enables global
productivity and collaboration.
Looking Ahead to 2022
If there is anything we have learned in the past couple of
years, nothing is certain. However, organizations will look to prepare their
workforces for the continued hybrid future. Big or small, organizations will
turn increasingly to the cloud - more specifically to cloud PCs - for increased
performance, flexibility, and cost savings.
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ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Amitabh Sinha has more than 20 years of
experience in enterprise software, end-user computing, mobile, and database
software. Sinha co-founded Workspot with Puneet Chawla and Ty Wang in August
2012. Prior to Workspot, Sinha was the general manager for enterprise desktops
and Apps at Citrix Systems. In his five years at Citrix, Sinha was vice
president of product management for XenDesktop and vice president of
engineering for the Advanced Solutions Group. Sinha has a Ph.D. in computer
science from the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign.