
The Covid-19 pandemic is moving organisations away from desktops to laptops across the world. Vivekanand Manjeri, Brand Director, Client Solutions Group, Dell Technologies, India says this shift in consumption “from fixed computing to mobility” is more apparent in certain verticals that are more service-oriented and public sector organisations.
Some companies have been quick to embrace the new ‘normal’, Manjeri elaborates, while others are now shifting from fixed computing to mobility. “It happened in two phases.”
While Manjeri agrees that in certain verticals the demand has shifted out of desktop computing, he said the desktop form factor isn’t dead yet. “The desktop as a form factor is very relevant and will continue to be relevant because it provides some key advantages over mobility. It provides physical security and robustness in terms of the ability to manage some heavy workload.
“What I appear to be seeing is that they are shipping out those units to the homes of employees to enable them to operate productively because their use cases require a fixed computing environment,” Manjeri explains.

‘Work from home is going to be a new environment’
Most companies have accepted that work from home will continue to stay in a post-pandemic world, but they are still learning what are the right tools needed to make remote work easier and productive.
“I think there will still continue to be specific rules that will require employees to be in office. There are going to be critical roles like for some people who are working on critical IT infrastructure or critical functions within the organisation that will require them to be working from home,” he said.
“While the work from home within organisations will go up, it won’t be a 100 per cent work from home”, he said, adding that it will be a phased rollout in a lot of organisations, and there will still be a certain mix of the employee base that will have to continue to work from their offices.
Even as offices in some states have partly begun to reopen, experts said remote work will end up being the new normal for most organisations in the foreseeable future.

Right at the time when there is a growing shift in certain sectors toward remote working during the pandemic, Dell is bringing in the Latitude 9510. Pitched as “the world’s smallest and lightest commercial 15-inch PC”, the business laptop promises up to 30 hours of battery life and a weight that is around 1.5 kg. This is a 5G-ready commercial laptop with Intel’s 10th Generation VPro processors, an aluminum chassis with diamond-cut edges, Dell’s Infinity bezel. Wi-Fi 6, and more. Dell also claims the Latitude 9510 is the most intelligent PC with built-in A1.
“We are positioning this product to meet the requirements of business leaders who really value intelligent performance and convenience,” says Manjeri. The Latitude 9510 will start at Rs 1,49,000, but since it is targeted at senior executives and heads of organisations, the price won’t be an issue even during these unprecedented times.