How the cost of living crisis could bring Desktops PC back to life

For many years the industry has been foreseeing the end of the Desktop Computer. This prediction has grown during the pandemic and it makes sense to understand why.

Before 2020 laptops were usually reserved for specific departments, mobile sales people or executive positions within a company. When lockdown began, everyone needed a laptop to be able to work from home and what used to be a secondary device became the primary one and this pushed desktops PCs down the line as the central business tool of employees.

3 years later it's safe to say that laptops are not going anywhere and they will remain the primary device for most, if not all, people. So yes, the desktop is dead for all fits and purposes…but not extinct.

Some types of businesses, like Call Centers, will always find an application for desktop computers. But there are two factors that could also contribute to keep them around:

1. 1. The cost of living crisis
2. 2. The return of the workforce to offices.

The cost of living crisis: how to save money on your IT budget

The best way for us to explain this is to give you our own example. At InnoVent we adopted an alternative device strategy thanks to our remote working capability and using our 2nd Life IT refurbished equipment:

To start with, it’s fair to say that a brand new corporate laptop nowadays is above £1000, right?

In our office, we use 2nd Life mini desktops and 2nd Life laptops for working remotely. The actual cost of those 2 devices together is therefore less than the cost of a brand new laptop.

So, our clients can save up to 40 to 50% of the cost of new with our refurbished laptops and desktops, and have the certainty and peace of mind that our equipment is fully supported for the entire term of their lease.

Here you can learn more about our 2nd Life solution and see how good it actually looks (2nd Life doesn’t mean second hand, at least for us).

The return of the workforce to the office

Many businesses are trying to find ways to bring back their staff to the office. A lot of efforts are being done around benefits and human resources, and IT can also play a part in it.

One of the main issues regarding IT that arose in the last few years is the need to have light and thin devices to make it easier to carry around on a daily commute. But there is also a need from our end-users to have bigger size screens to work more comfortably, and unfortunately those two needs don’t match.

You can read more about this in our “Pros and Cons of lightweight devices” blog.

But what if you could offer an even better alternative? Like we mentioned before we are a 2 device per user company. That means that no one has to carry or bring a laptop to work to begin with.

But if they do, we also provide a universal environment where it is just easy and simple to connect your laptop to your office desk and start working right away, without the need of using and carrying multiple cables and power chargers.

The latest and greatest technology

We are aware that there is a subconscious need to always look out for the latest technology, but…is there any reason a business truly needs the latest IT equipment available?

Creative departments, developers, audiovisual creators yes, definitely. They will always be the high power users that need that horse power. But most people today use Teams/Zoom, spreadsheets, Powerpoints, Word documents and web browsers to do their daily tasks.

Programs like Teams or Zoom need about 5 to 6 GB of RAM dedicated to this App to run properly. In the pandemic we learned that if you had a laptop with only 8 GB memory and you opened a couple of spreadsheets, your email, then a Word document and then took a Teams call the machine couldn't cope.

That’s why all our 2nd Life laptops have a standard 16 GB memory configuration to run all the applications your staff needs smoothly. Plus, all can be further upgraded as needed. You can download our 2nd Life Catalogue here for more information or you can also contact us here.