Personal/work devices will need to keep up without any compromise in performance, as collaborative tools gain more features amidst their growing adoption in the era of hybrid work.
In particular, video-conferencing applications have seen increased use as employees move to remote work, prompting developers of these tools to unveil new features in a bid to retain their user base.
Zoom Apps, for instance, was launched to fuel the integration of third-party applications on the video-conferencing platform. It has spawned features such as Dot Collector, which facilitates brainstorming and feedback gathering so colleagues can share their perspectives, in real-time, within their Zoom discussions.
However, as richer and more interactive services are packed into these collaborative tools, not all work devices are built with the capabilities to keep up. This can impact the system's overall stability and, as a result, adversely affect user experience and productivity.
As it is, performance and system crashes are amongst the most common user complaints. According to a CheckPoint survey of IT and security professionals, 65% of helpdesk tickets are related to latency or performance issues that remote workers experience on their devices. Another 66% involve system instability or crashes, while 62% are related to VPN issues.
The survey also reveals that scaling performance as well as supporting remote access for employees' unmanaged devices are amongst the top administrative challenges.
Such concerns can be addressed when organisations deploy systems that the IT support team can manage remotely and that are designed to deliver high performance, even as their users increasingly turn to collaborative digital tools.
These work devices also should be built with security in mind. This is especially critical as hackers look to exploit potential gaps, with employees working outside the corporate firewall and in less secured home networks.
Delivering security and manageability for hybrid work
Performance, security, and manageability are the key pillars enterprises need to operate efficiently in the new hybrid work norm.
And they are the driving force behind the Intel® vPro® platform architecture, which powers laptops that deliver enhanced security features and facilitate workforce productivity.
All Intel vPro platform based systems are exclusively armed with Intel Hardware Shield, a hardware-based solution that offers advanced threat detection as well as stronger protection for business workloads. It provides near real-time threat insights of client devices and safeguards against security risks across all layers, including BIOS/firmware, hypervisor, operating system, and applications.
Intel's hardware-powered Control-Flow Enforcement Technology (CET) and Threat Detection Technology (TDT) also can help thwart multiple attack types, such as attacks on system memory, and detect the latest threats including cryptomining and ransomware.
Further armed with Intel Hardware Shield's advanced telemetry capabilities, Intel vPro platform systems offer the insights IT teams need to more quickly diagnose problems and take the necessary remediation.
They also will be able to do so remotely with Intel Active Management Technology, which is part of the Intel vPro platform, and Intel Endpoint Management Assistant. Together, they enable IT administrators to remotely dispense corrective measures to return work devices to a known good state--even when the OS is down.
The two solutions also allow Intel vPro platform systems to be managed inside and outside the corporate firewall, and support both wireless and wired connectivity. In addition, patches for critical security can be pushed out to user devices remotely.
Ensuring performance for new work norm
Apart from security, remote workers today need systems that can remain resilient as they access more digital tools to better collaborate with their teammates.
The Intel vPro platform delivers this with artificial intelligence (AI) and other capabilities, such as Intel Iris® Xe graphics, neural noise suppression, and background blur.
These features ensure your workforce can enjoy media-rich and immersive collaborative experiences, regardless of where they are, and without any compromise in performance.
In fact, Intel vPro platform users can experience 41% faster office productivity during a video conference call, enabling them to remain productive even as they collaborate. This experience is measured on an 11th Gen Intel Core™ vPro i7-1185G7 Processor vs. 8th Gen Intel Core™ vPro i7-8650U Processor.
Workspaces today have been redefined to encompass online tools that allow remote workers to continue to collaborate effectively. And they will need to be able to do so with devices that can support these functionalities without sacrificing performance or security.
More importantly, these personal work systems should be integrated with remote manageability to help businesses minimise disruptions and better manage IT support costs.
The Intel vPro platform is optimised for such hybrid work environments, delivering the performance and resilience organisations and their employees need to stay ahead of the game.
