Many people seem to think that it is only a matter of time before the desktop is relegated to history, as portable devices seem set to take a stranglehold on the market. However, David Kan, Group CEO of Mustek, has a different opinion.
He says that while there are a lot of question marks around this subject, he believes that the desktop is here to stay. He adds, however, that the traditional desktop will be of a different class to what people knew in the past.
"The main reason the desktop will not be going out of fashion any time soon is based on its total cost of ownership (TCO). The fact that the spare parts for most desktops are basically interchangeable means that we can use the same parts to repair a vast range of PCs from different manufacturers. Laptops, on the other hand, create a challenge even from model to model, meaning that it costs far more to repair them than it does a PC," he says.
"The way laptops are built means that because of their different appearances, they require different motherboards, optical drives and so on. This also makes the warranty costs on these devices much higher than they would be on a desktop. Bearing this in mind, I believe that both the private sector and in particular the public sector will keep desktops alive for a long time to come."
Kan also points out that the desktop performance tends to be better than a laptop at the same price level. In fact, he suggests that if any device is going to be squeezed out of the market, it will be the laptop.
"A lot of people use desktops at home already, while most corporations utilise PCs for their office workers, as the bigger screen and full size keyboard makes for better productivity. If one wants a mobile device, the growing popularity of tablets indicates that these could well take over much of the laptop's market share."
Another reason for retaining desktops in a corporate environment is the fact that they are much easier to manage, and therefore to secure. In the financial services sector, for example, there is a huge emphasis on ensuring that sensitive data cannot be moved around willy-nilly. This is much easier to manage with a static PC than it is with a mobile device, adds Kan.
From a Mustek perspective, he says that it does take a lot of skill to make the master hard drive for a desktop. Once this is created with the various applications, software and operating system required by the client, however, it is a simple matter to ensure that however many thousands of PCs they require can all be built to the same specifications.
"Looking at it from a different perspective, Mustek also builds all its Mecer PCs locally, so we are heavily involved in job creation, thanks to our assembly line, which is virtually an industry training ground, because of the skills we teach."
"Our people are trained initially on how to build a PC, load it with software and add the relevant applications. Later, they are moved to our after-sales service department, meaning that they learn troubleshooting at the coalface. This then gives them the required skills to move on to one of the big systems integrators or even into government as a member of the IT support infrastructure team," he says.
He says that Mustek has been going for 25 years, so it knows the industry well and can thus bring its enormous experience and understanding of the PC market to bear when customers need something special.
"I would therefore urge any corporate thinking of a technology refresh to seriously consider desktops. Not only do they offer the best security and manageability, but they are reliable and are easy to repair when necessary - and there is no one that does it better than Mustek, with its own brand of Mecer desktops and PCs," concludes Kan.
