Page 11 - EE|Times Europe Magazine - December 2020

EE|Times EUROPE — The Memory Market 11

SPECIAL REPORT: MEMORY TECHNOLOGY
Remote Work Spurs Desktop Performance

Increases

By Gary Hilson

re PCs again poised to drive memory demand? Or are 5G- With remote work looking to be a long-term
enabled smartphones the go-to devices for remote workers?
As more of us work from home, the last thing that IT trend, PC purchases are climbing, for the
A departments need is complaints about a lack of computing home office as well as education and gaming.
horsepower. The solution isn’t necessarily desktops or laptops with
more RAM; it could be smartphones with a more gamified workspace
experience in line with off-hours use.
The desktop computer was the early adopter of DRAM, with high- with expansion capacity up to 64 GB and as much as 4 TB of SSD storage.
end gaming PCs leading the charge. With data center growth, the Lenovo, meanwhile, is catering to small and medium-sized busi-
move to cloud computing, and the rise of hyperscalers, servers tend nesses. Its popular ThinkPad laptop has been upgraded with the X1
to drive demand for the latest and greatest DDR specifications and Nano, which is slimmer and lighter while still delivering the perfor-
NAND flash SSDs. Emerging applications such as AI in the data center mance needed for productivity applications. Hewlett-Packard’s recent
are consuming graphical DDR (GDDR) DRAM that’s typically found in update to its Z portfolio is also aimed at performance, hardware
high-performance desktops used for gaming and design. expandability, and versatility for remote work.
With the evolution of smartphones and tablets, desktop computers Aside from needing enough memory and storage to keep up
grew less popular with mobile users in recent years. Many workers with with productivity applications run locally on workstations, these
office computers no longer felt the need to have one at home. But with platforms require sufficient
remote work now looking to be a long-term proposition, PC purchases computing power to run a virtual
are climbing again. Workers not only need one for the home office but desktop infrastructure (VDI),
are also increasingly using them for education and gaming. enabling remote workers to run
Both IDC and Gartner reported strong PC demand in the second office applications.
quarter of 2020. PC makers registered double-digit growth in the U.S. Global Market Insights forecasts
market compared with the same quarter a year ago — a volume not that the VDI market will hit US$30
seen since 2009. IDC cited working from home and e-learning as key billion by 2026, due in part to
drivers of demand. Whether demand will hold up post-pandemic is an the extensive adoption of mobile
open question. devices for enterprise comput-
ing. Meanwhile, companies are
SUPPLY CHAIN ADJUSTMENTS delivering a wide array of software
Gartner said that the global PC market recovered at least for the short and applications. The research
term during the second quarter, although some of it was due to distrib- firm predicts increased demand for
utors and retail channels restocking their supplies back to near-normal personal configuration require-
levels. It also cautioned that the uptick in mobile PC demand wouldn’t ments of virtual desktops through Enterprise Strategy Group’s
continue beyond this year, driven as it was by the pandemic. “persistent” VDI instances. The Mark Bowker
Given the new challenges for IT departments, desktop vendors hardware segment of VDI encom-
realize that workstations must keep up with user expectations, whether passes both the server and client sides, consisting of end-user computing
those users work from home or return to the office. devices such as desktop PCs, laptops, and even smartphones.
Dell recently introduced its Precision 3240 Compact, a workstation VDI or not, desktop PCs or laptops may not be necessary for remote
with a small footprint but sufficient performance to run enterprise work. According to Mark Bowker of Enterprise Strategy Group, remote
applications along with virtual reality and AI simulations. The work- workers and IT departments are warming to the idea of docking a
station comes with accelerated memory speeds of up to 2,933 MHz, smartphone to a monitor, mouse, and keyboard to work remotely.
“I use my smartphone to display a full Windows desktop,” Bowker
said. “If I was to go back into a corporate or office setting, I could use
Lenovo is catering the same device,” requiring only an office monitor.
to remote workers with a Smartphones are capable of serving as the only device needed for
slimmer and lighter both personal and office use. The pandemic has demonstrated that a
ThinkPad that still delivers smartphone could be the primary device for many business users. In
the performance needed for response, Microsoft introduced a dual-screen Surface Duo that
productivity applications. combines Windows and Android applications. That indicates a shift
(Source: Lenovo) toward smaller devices and web-based applications.
Applications may be “skinnier,” Bowker added, but installed apps are
still required. So, too, are security updates for the foreseeable future.
Regardless, work machines will need sufficient memory to meet user
expectations, said Bowker, and corporate environments will become
more gamified in line with how users interact with devices during off-
hours. As 5G is deployed, devices are going to need much more local
memory, even if the applications are run through the cloud. Next-

www.eetimes.eu | DECEMBER 2020