Evan Williams, Microsoft small and midmarket solutions and partners group manager, says migration from Windows XP to version 8 has helped the past quarter sales "and will continue to the next quarter".
"XP was an operating system that coped quite well for a long time and was very successful. Windows 7 was [also] very successful, then Windows 8 came out and tried to drive a mobile focus and we recognise we didn’t look after that desktop experience as much as we innovated in the mobile space.
"Now, with [Windows] 8.1, that’s brought back the desktop features so that hit through that June quarter, that functionality. It’s too early to say if 8.1 has helped the desktop, but we listened to feedback and put back that desktop functionality in, and as we go forwards we have those users in mind."
Williams says partners may need to push back against customers’ pre-conceived notions.
"With one of our larger customers, they have a buying panel with a fully fledged notebook and a two-in-one device. When users were asked which they wanted, the majority went for a notebook. When we did readiness training showing what a two-in-one device could do with the latest software, there was a big turnaround for what people were asking from that panel."
And for partners, especially systems integrators and independent software vendors building solutions for customers, having a single platform also cuts development time, he says.
"You’ll have a platform that will enable developers to create an app across screen sizes with very limited rework and no rework in the future," Williams says.
"Resellers should look at that and go, ‘Wow! I have an app I’m going to write today and works on a phone and desktop, I can see where Microsoft is going with the operating system, I can provide value by being ready to go across screen sizes.’ "
Where once features and ‘grunt’ drove upgrades, now staff mobility and simplified management gets buyers to issue purchase orders.
Safi Obeidullah, Citrix Australia & New Zealand director of sales engineering, says workers need to get at their data wherever they are and on whatever device they have to hand. Virtualisation and cloud are playing their part.
"[Computing] is less about the traditional notion of a desktop and about the applications and data," Obeidullah says. "For any reseller delivering a solution, how do people get access to their apps and data because the traditional PC… the notion of a rectangular box with cables coming out of it will go away soon."
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And with more applications moving to data centres and cloud, the need for PCs to do heavy lifting on the desktop is evolving, he says.
Lenovo Australia executive director Matt Codrington says devices such as the Yoga have revived the struggling hardware segment.
"You have that clamshell and keyboard and that’s still the best mode, but in terms of consumption, the tablet mode has distinct advantages as well so that’s still a PC for us," Codrington says.
He says schools present unusual hazards and students have a taste for high-end machines. PCs must be tough enough to survive a bag fight, be light, and go six hours between recharges. Fashion is also important.
"I sell very few of the base models, there’s a lot of X series, Carbons and Helixes especially in private schools. As much as you can get a Chrome device, how you get data in there and the robustness is still very relevant."
Codrington sees the PC being around in five years, although research into gestural vocabularies, face recognition and other input modes will cause it to evolve. "It’s how to make an efficient interface beyond the keyboard that’s intuitive, efficient and consistent, and once you crack that the PC evolves very quickly to the next form factor."
For all the optimism, distributor Bluechip Infotech managing director Johnson Hsiung sounds a reality note.
"The two-in-one… obviously it creates a lot of discussion and interest in the channel. But most people I know are already using multiple devices so they have no rush to use the two-in-one," Hsiung says.
"With a decent notebook or mobile phone, I can [surf] the net and I have a tablet that I can use just for reading. Nowadays, the tablet is so cheap and the smartphone is ubiquitous, so why should I rush out and buy a two-in-one?"
Hsiung is not a believer in touch for input on enterprise devices, especially those running popular productivity applications such as Office: "I don’t think the applications on touch is popular because most applications don’t require touch."
He says resellers must couple device implementation tightly to solutions to be profitable. "The demand for storage and infrastructure is huge. From the channel point of view, hardware is no longer the focus – it’s the solutions, software and the service."
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