5 Key Takeaways from the IGEL DISRUPT EUC Forum

Last week the Dizzion team attended IGEL’s DISRUPT End User Computing Forum in Austin, TX along with other IGEL partners, end customers, industry analysts and EUC thought leaders. The event featured various panel discussions and keynotes from disruptors within the EUC space. Dizzion CTO, Rob Green, was part of a panel discussion surrounding Desktop as a Service and the impact cloud technologies have had on virtual desktop infrastructure. Overall, it was a great event that provided some interesting insights and a view into where the industry is headed.

Here are our five key takeaways from the event:

1. The way organizations are thinking about end users is changing.

It’s clear organizations of all sizes across the globe are thinking differently about enabling their employees. The digital transformation, mobility / multi-device access, the consumerization of IT and the millennial workforce were all macro level factors highlighted as driving this shift.

Technology giants such as Apple in the consumer space have driven user expectations around consuming things in a flexible, easy way. An individual’s expectations in his or her work environment are now no different. IT has a core function of making life easier for end users and these themes are critical when designing and delivering solutions.

2. Start with the end user in mind.

Several speakers emphasized that the end user must be at the center of all we do and create. Monique Ouellette, VP of MobileFirst Services at IBM, discussed how user experience and productivity are interwoven. Shawn Bass, CTO of VMware End User Computing, backed that up by sharing that empowered employees whose firms make the apps they need readily available spend 20% less time on manual processes and see a 15% increase in collaboration. He stressed an employee-first mentality when designing end user computing solutions. He also highlighted the platform and security as core focus areas when driving digital transformation within the enterprise. Finally, Bass summed it up well by stating that the end user is the center of the universe while devices and applications just hang off of them.

3. Security is top of mind for everyone.

With digital transformation, BYO / BYOD trends, and mobility driving end user behavior, security is a heightened concern across the board. WannaCry, Meltdown and Spectre were all discussed as key security events of the past year that created significant vulnerabilities at the end user layer. The IGEL team highlighted how it responded to those incidents and gave us further insights as to how they will approach vulnerabilities like these into the future. IGEL CEO and Founder Heiko Gloge put an exclamation point on the importance of security by stating it is top of mind for everyone – customers, prospects and partners – during his closing remarks of the conference.

4. IoT is going to make things more complicated – or is it?

Stephen DiFranco of the IoT Advisory Group shared that by 2020 there will be somewhere between two and six connected “things” per person. This could be wearables, SmartTVs, tablets, phones, home appliances, and much more. He pointed out this growth will create significant revenue opportunities for companies outside of the industry giants such as Apple and Google selling in those spaces today.

Industry expert Brian Madden reemerged at DISRUPT and filled us in on what he’s been up to for the past 18 months. He also gave his perspective on IoT, pointing out that it is bound to complicate IT management in the future. However, Madden argued IoT may just be the next Y2K – is it really any different from the device management challenges IT deals with today? In sum, the more ubiquitous solutions and platforms become, the more silos of specialization will break down within IT.

5. What’s to come from IGEL.

Our partners at IGEL took some time to share what’s to come from their team. We will continue to see a strong software approach to transforming the end user experience, not just hardware. Mattias HaaS, IGEL CTO, provided an overview of some of the key product enhancements on the IGEL roadmap.

Not surprisingly, he reiterated what we heard throughout the rest of DISRUPT – improving the end user experience is the key goal. He described how end users have expectations around things being easy and seamless and, as those of us within EUC know very well, sometimes delivering certain pieces of functionality in a virtual world can be challenging. IGEL is striving to remove these challenges and the Dizzion team is excited about what is to come.

Bob Alread from Right Systems wrapped up our thoughts so well on the final day of DISRUPT by emphasizing how exciting the EUC space is right now. The technology we are all working on and with each day is truly impacting the way people get work done. He went on to point out that so many of us spend more time in front of a keyboard than we do in our homes – transforming that experience is an incredibly exciting place to be within IT right now. Well said and we couldn’t agree more. #DISRUPTEUC